Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Think you just have to go after it and do it. I think you have to be mindful of the negativity and what is feeding negativity and you have to block it out because you can come up with a million reasons. You always have that person, that thing. Anything that blocks you, you've got to get rid of it. And I actually made this shirt that says, actually I can.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Welcome to another episode of Daring Dreams, heart and strategy in small business marketing. Today we're diving into entrepreneurship, advocacy, and technology that's changing lives. And I'm so excited to introduce you to Jessica Baladad. Jessica is a six year breast cancer survivor and the creator of Feel for your life, a free mobile app that is empowering people to take charge of their health. She's turned her own experience into a first of its kind app that provides resources on breast exams, screenings and tracking changes. It's been downloaded tens of thousands of times worldwide.
Now with the launch of an AI feature in her app, she's making it even easier for patients to interpret complex pathology reports, giving them the tools to ask the right questions and advocate for their own care.
This is an eye opening and inspiring conversation that you will not want to miss. So let's dive right in. Welcome, Jessica, thank you so much for joining me on Daring Dreams.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: You're welcome. Okay, let's just dive right in because I'm sure that your story is going to be very inspiring. And the fact that you have turned, you know, a devastating probably time in your life into something that is helping so many people, I just can't even wait to start. So let's, let's start with kind of your journey to get this business opened and what happened. And you can take me back as far as you want.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Okay, so let's go back to when I was 18 years old and I found the first lump in my breast. I was getting ready to start my freshman year in college. I was taking a shower between jobs one day and I accidentally stumbled upon a lump. And I thought, oh my God, am I too young to get breast cancer? And this was the time before Google, like, Dr. Google was a thing. So you had to like actually call your friends and kind of do like traditional research. And I remember talking to an aunt, my dad's sister, his youngest sister, my aunt Debbie. And she had had breast cancer and she was also a nurse.
She said, you need to go to the doctor. And I let her actually physically examine me. And she said, you Know it moves and that's a really good thing. But you're 18 and it's time for you to go to the gynecologist. Now, I was raised by my dad. This was not a conversation we ever had or anything I was prepared for. So anyway, went to the gynecologist. They said it was a cyst and that it would go away on its own, like with my menstrual cycle. I said, great, no problem.
Well, months pass, the lump's still there. I'm a freshman in college. I'm just enjoying college life. I'm walking to class one day and I feel this lump and I'm like, this is hurting me. It's bothering me.
Sat my books down, went to the bathroom, and I can just notice that it's bigger. Went to the doctor after class, that doctor on campus referred me for imaging. And imaging revealed that I actually had a tumor.
And I thought, oh my God, what happened to this cyst that'll go away with my menstrual cycle? So I had a lumpectomy, I had surgery, and surgery revealed that it was actually a benign, a non cancerous tumor called a fibroadenoma, something that occurs in women of menstruating ages. And it was that experience that put me in the habit of doing self exams.
So fast forward 15 years later, I'm 33 years old. I am doing an intentional self exam in the shower when I discovered a lump.
Now, before taking this shower two days prior, I had just gone to the doctor for my, well, woman's exam. She did a clinical exam of my breast and said nothing to me about finding a lump. So when I discovered it, I thought, I'm sure this is nothing. She didn't say anything to me. I'm probably fine. I'm in the best shape of my life. Breast cancer only runs on my dad's side of the family.
I'm probably okay.
Well, I got out of the shower that day, I went to Dr. Google.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Now it's Dr. Chatgpt.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: A little bit before that, but this is still Dr. Google at this time. And I'm looking at the different symptoms and side effects of breast cancer.
It's talking about like nipple discharge, puckering, indentations, a rash. And I'm like, well, I don't have any of that. It's just a lump.
I'm fine. I'm probably fine. Because again, I held on to the fact that the doctor said nothing to me.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Oh my gosh.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm getting really tired. And I was traveling a lot for work at the time. And I thought, I guess this is what it's just like being in your 30s now. You just start getting old and tired and it's like, I guess I. This is just problems with life. I'm gonna, you know, taking two and a half hour naps in the middle of the day.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: And I was still waking up groggy, and I didn't understand what was going on. I mean, I was working out, taking care of myself, and I just chalked it up to being older. And one day I'm waking up from a nap and I check my phone and I'm looking at Snapchat and I see a girl shaving her head. And it was a mutual friend of mine and my sister's. And I text my sister, I said, why is so and so shaving her head? And my sister's like, she's getting ready to start chemotherapy for breast cancer.
And I'm like, what? She's a year older than I am.
I better go back to the doctor.
Went to the doctor, they sent me for a mammogram and an ultrasound, and I eventually got a proper diagnosis. I was diagnosed with breast cancer months later.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Then it could have probably been picked up, right?
[00:06:20] Speaker A: I did speak with my former primary care physician. I don't see her anymore. But she admitted that, hey, I should have referred you for scheduling or screenings well before you made it this far. Now, thankfully, I was only diagnosed at stage 2B, so it was still caught really early or pretty early anyway.
I did chemo, I did radiation. I had a double mastectomy, I had a preventative hysterectomy. And then I had something called deep flap reconstruction, where they take fat tissue and blood vessels from my stomach and place them into my chest to recreate my body.
And it was a very tough route, but I'm grateful that I did it. When I was going through chemotherapy and I was reaching out to my friends to let them know, hey, if you see this bald girl walking around the grocery store in our hometown, it's just me. I have breast cancer. I'm gonna be okay. And of course everyone's freaking out because I'm trying to download.
They're like, how did you even know to get screened or go to the doctor about that? And I said, I do my self exams every month. Aren't you?
Nope. It was crickets silent.
And I'm like, I need to do something about this.
I'm going to do something. And one day I was in the shower, my hair was still coming out of my head. You know, the life of my head was falling out. And this shower is where I always felt myself, is where I did my self exams. And the name feel for your life came to me in the shower and I thought, oh my God, this is it. This is it. I feel for your life. I don't know what this means yet or what I'm gonna do with it exactly, but I remember getting out of the shower, I reserved the URL. I looked up all the social channels. They were completely, completely available.
And so I just reserve them all. Feel for your life. Feel for your life. The URL and everything. And I am a person of faith. And I remember saying, hey, God, just use me through my journey. Just use me through this.
And I've just been listening to him the whole time. So feel for your life started out as a Facebook and an Instagram page where I shared my story and talked about the importance of self exams and advocacy and things that you need to navigate in your health care and insurance and the things that I was learning along the way.
So I come through the other side of breast cancer and then the pandemic hits and I'm like, okay, two weeks of quarantine. Is that all they're saying? I did that during chemo.
I quarantined four months. Just two weeks.
No big deal. I can do it. Two more weeks. This is nothing to me.
Well, two weeks turned into what it was.
And the NFL had reached out to me. They heard about feel for your life, they heard about my story, and they said, hey, Jessica, we would love for you to participate in our crucial CATCH campaign. Tell your story. Talk about the importance of getting screened. And that's when I learned that women were missing their screenings and getting diagnosed at later stages because they were afraid to go to the doctor and be seen in hospitals. And they didn't want to get sick. So I thought, oh my God, yes, I participated in that. And I'm like, yes, I would love to. And I thought, well, self exam saved my life. I need to do more on the feel for your life side. So I used my long term quarantine time to create feel for your life the app.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Oh my gosh, you know what? I. I know Covid was awful, but from, from a business perspective, people like you and people who were like, I'm going to make something of this. Like, what a gift to the world that you had the time to do that.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm grateful for it. And I just. All the stories I was hearing from people like, is it safe for me to go to the hospital to get a mammogram or get any sort of screening? You know, how do I do a self exam? You know, what happens next? And I thought, well, to myself, I thought, either this is the end of the world or this might be mildly successful, so I'm just gonna go for it. I thought, why not?
I taught myself what I needed to know. I got in touch with a really great mentor who showed me platforms and services and things that I needed to learn to teach myself. And he was really awesome and all of that. So it took me nine, 10 months to create feel for your life and have it launch into the app. From inception to launch, it was about nine, 10 months.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: What exactly does it do?
[00:11:02] Speaker A: So when you log into the feel for your life app, everything on all the resources are completely free and available for you to use. As soon as you download the app, you'll create an account. And after you create the the account, you'll see instructions on how to perform a self exam, how to get screened, and advocate for your breast health. There are resources for showing you, you know, helping you with the fear of getting over, going to get a screen, or there are resources on taking risk, reducing measures against cancer, understanding your genetics, understanding your breast density, all the important things that are essential to your breast health. And these are all documented by the nih, the National Breast Cancer foundation, and really credible sources that have been medically reviewed. Also inside of there. So you'll do a self exam. You can track and monitor your progress. So you can keep notes of anything that you find. Find. Of course, if you do stumble upon a lump or something abnormal, you want to go to the doctor. But from there you can also set a reminder so you never forget when to do your next self exam. And from there there's something called breast friend AI. If you go get a mammogram, get labs done, have surgery, and you get your pathology report back. According to the Cures act of 2021, your physician has to upload that into your portable, your portable, your portal, your online portal, before you even get to talk to them in person again. Because you know, there's just rules and laws for you to have access to your medical information when it's available. And you get this message that's just, you're not a doctor. So you're like, what does this mean? I'm really confused. Well, there's this tool in the feel for your life app called breastfeeding friend AI and it can take that pathology, translate it into terms that you can understand and populate. Questions for you to ask your doctor based on your specific pathology.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: Wow. How did you do that?
[00:12:57] Speaker A: I saw how AI was emerging over the past, that the AI portion launched last year, but I saw how it was emerging. I'm like, well, taught myself how to build an app. How to build an app. I'm. I'm going to learn more about this AI thing and how I can incorporate it. So I just taught myself the programming languages that I needed to know and put it together.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Now, before all of this, were you an IT person? Were you a techie?
[00:13:24] Speaker A: So I have a background in journalism, psychology, marketing, pr. I'm very creative. I am a creative person at heart.
My. I was being. Being raised by my dad. Now, my dad worked in fiber optics and telecommunications, and growing up with him, I had Barbie dolls and electronics.
He would come home and say, hey, Jessica, look at this. This is called a global positioning system.
This is how it works. This mid-90s, showing me how GPS technology works and why I need to know about it and why it's important and how this is the future.
And at that age, I'm just kind of rolling my eyes and shrugging my shoulders like, yeah, okay, whatever, dad. Sure. You're always right, right? Well, he was. And so I was always introduced to technology. He was very supportive of that. Christmas gifts, birthday gifts were always surrounded with technology.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: So you were comfortable with it even though it wasn't your field of study?
[00:14:28] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, it wasn't. And I never thought I would go in that direction.
But now I get to combine my creativity, my breast cancer diagnosis and my hobby and technology all together into feel for your life.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Wow. Okay. I love that you were a marketer and a creative person. So let's talk about the marketing of this app and how you got noticed, how so the listeners can kind of maybe pick up some ideas that they might be able to use for their businesses.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: The best thing was probably understanding how to meet people where they are, how to. You can't make someone care. You have to be really good at telling your story, understanding your story, and leading your story with empathy and not so much trauma dumping, because cancer is scary. Like in the breast cancer community, we have something called cancer ghosting. And it's when you tell someone you have cancer and they can't handle the reality of your mortality, and they ghost you. Like, they just can't handle it. And I mean, that's on them.
It is what it is. I accept it for what it is. You know, I grieve the relationship and move on.
But you have to understand and meet someone where they are and relate it to where they are. So know your story and tell your story. I reached out to media outlets in my local area and it was picked up by local news. I had three news stations at my house in one week, a newspaper and two local news stations. And from there it was picked up by different Instagram pages who just took off with it and it went viral. Then Good Morning America got in touch with it and it's just Shape. Sharing my story and the why behind what I did, why I did. I solved the problem. I related it to my story and I told my story effectively. That's what it came down to.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Story matters so much. And businesses that are built on a real person and a real story and a real solution definitely have a leg up in the media side. Right. Because people want those kind of stories.
And of course, that's why you're here, because you have such a good story story and you've done so much with it. So really it was like a media blitz that kind of started the ball rolling in this for you.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: Right. I thought when I launched it, you know, I put it out on Facebook and Instagram to my audience audiences that just feels it was my friends and family. And I figured that, that, you know, they would golf clap for me. Oh, good job. Look at Jessica overcoming cancer and creating this cute little pink app with all this.
That's so neat. That's so cool.
And then they. Little did they know I had bigger plans and I knew that God had bigger plans for me. So I kept telling my story and pitching it and telling people about. I just didn't give up because I knew if a self exam saved my life, more people need to know about this. And I started looking into why were people not being educated on self exams. And I learned a few things no one taught them. How women felt ashamed of their bodies or touching themselves or they were uninsured or underinsured and didn't feel comfortable with going to the doctor and following up. And I thought, okay, these are all problem, all problems why they don't know how to do a self exam. And that's all related to the advocacy that I need to start promoting going forward.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: You know what? I have not done a self exam in a really long time.
So I, I will do that.
And so I love, I love the idea of the app and the reminder. Right.
I think it's really good. Is there a certain time of the month that women are supposed to do self exams or is it just whenever they, you know, whenever.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: So my doctor told me to do my self exams after my menstrual cycle, maybe a couple days after it was over. And that's when I still had a menstrual cycle after my hysterectomy, when I no longer had a menstrual cycle the same time of the month, they said just that can be your baseline the same time every month. If you notice anything different, give us a call and we'll get you in and check it out.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: And I'm sure that because you've had tens of thousands of people download this, have you had any stories come back to you that kind of made you feel like this was the right thing or. I know you know it's the right thing, but tell me about some of the, the feedback that you've gotten.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: One of my favorite stories comes from a woman who had been through breast cancer and had a lumpectomy and, and no one had told her how to do a self exam after her breast cancer diagnosis. She downloaded my app, used it, learned what she needed to do. She found another lump in her breast and found an early stage breast cancer reoccurrence because of downloading my app and learning. And I knew I'm like, this is exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing. And even now I still do myself again after breast cancer. And I actually just had another biopsy done after finding a lump.
What had happened was it wasn't exactly related to breast cancer, but I was just telling the story on my Instagram today. I was doing a self exam in the shower and I was going over the left side and I was up under my arm and I found a lump. And it wasn't a breast lump, it was actually a mole. I had seen it before, but I'd never felt it before.
And this is a side of my body that had been radiated. And so this lump was pretty new. But I had been keeping an eye on it and I thought, okay, it's starting to change. I'd never actually felt it like on the surface level of my skin. Got it checked out according to the pathology, what it was, I was told it was starting to turn, so it was becoming cancer and they removed it. And I'm okay. Early stage precancerous cells, everything's taken care of, but it's just continued, you know, I gotta practice what I'm, what I preach. I'm still doing it as well. And I want that to encourage others, you know, to Use the app, do their self exams, and advocate for their breast health.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: So you did the PR thing, and how did you keep it alive, like, after that?
Because that must have at some point kind of.
Or did it kind of go down in terms of the publicity?
[00:21:00] Speaker A: I mean, it's just been ongoing. I've created other resources. I started speaking, I was creating free PDFs that drew businesses in to support the app, to financially back the app, to sponsor the app, because they just really liked the. How I position myself and my story and the technology behind the app. They wanted to be on board with that. From advocacy organizations to medical device companies and to any company that makes materials for breast cancer patients, people going through breast surgery, it's just.
It just.
It went from a hobby into a business. And I. It was.
And then the AI last year just made it go through a whole surge of virality. Actually, last year is probably when I saw the most growth out of it.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: Okay, wow. So what would you say to somebody else who maybe wants to do something amazing? They've been through a hard time and they want to turn that into advocacy and something good, whether it's a hobby or a business.
How would you say to kind of get started or give them some advice on how to get that to happen?
[00:22:15] Speaker A: I think you just have to go after it and do it. I think you have to be mindful of the negativity and what is feeding negativity, and you have to block it out because you can come up with a million reasons. You always have that person, that thing, anything that blocks you, you've got to get rid of it. And I actually made this shirt that says, actually, I can can. Because I was going through a time when I had a negative person in my life who was telling me, you can't do that. You don't know how to do that. I'm just like, watch me.
And that's what he's doing now. He's now watching me while I'm doing things. He's now stuck watching me. So you have to remember, just. Just do it. It's like the Nike slogan, just do it. Just go for it. Fall on your face. Make the mistakes. Call it learning instead of failure and just keep going.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that that's the key, is you just gotta pick yourself up. How long have you been in business?
[00:23:10] Speaker A: In business? I filed the LLC in 2020, but I started getting sponsors for the app in 2022, 2023.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: Has there been any, like, big, like, mistakes or flops that you're like Oh, I wish I had some. Some warning that that was coming, that you would be comfortable sharing.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: While I was building the app, I was. I had this 2020 into 2021 there. I did not anticipate where I sourced my servers from. There was a fire that broke out. I was actually in the hospital. I was in the ICU recovering from deep flap reconstruction. And that's normal because they have to monitor blood flow. I get this text on my phone. I'm in my ICU bed. I look down, and it's from my mentors. Like, hey, the servers caught fire.
You have. It's either we give up or you start over. I'm like, I don't. I can't even right now. Like, just some things. But that I did do that helped me. I already had an attorney who was on board to help me with the legal side side of things. I had an accountant. Those are my. I don't do math. And I. I'm not an attorney. I've never watched suits before. Not yet, anyway.
So those are the two biggest things, like pay your taxes and get legally legit and anticipate that things are going to happen and that not everything is just gonna flow the way that you want it. Like, you have to anticipate just being thrown curveballs.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: So did you have to rebuild it?
[00:24:51] Speaker A: I did, Yep. I had to start over. That's why it took nine, 10 months, rather. I probably could have had it done a lot sooner than that.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: So how do you make money with an app?
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Like, you can have the Google AdWords space. I don't bring those ads. I rather do sponsorships. I do paid collaborations with brands on my social media.
I do speaking. I do some advocacy work with different organizations that bring me on to go talk to members of Congress and tell my story there. It's lots of ways.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Did you ever have any.
Anything happen that maybe in the startup? Anything else that would have been great to know from a marketing perspective.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: From a marketing perspective, like your marketing.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: Like, for you and I, because we've been doing it for a long time, is pretty easy, but for a lot of the listener, like, okay, she made an app, she has a story. But like, how do you take that, a story in an app, and turn it into this worldwide movement? Really?
[00:25:58] Speaker A: I think it's knowing that marketing and PR go hand in hand and you have to be consistent and you have to keep up with trends and changes. One thing that I do is that I. I will Google news stories related to breast health, breast cancer, anything in breast care, anything in those realms. And if there is something that I can relate my story to, I'll reach out to that reporter or that news station or if there's something that just happens, like, for example, that. And it was September 10, 2024, new FDA regulations went into effect that would require medical providers to tell you about your breast density and related. Relate it to what your.
Your feature screening routine should look like and your risk for breast cancer. So I started reaching out to news outlets and saying, hey, I'm a breast cancer survivor. This is my story, and this is who I am and what I do. Would you like to feature me about this? And it's like, oh, yeah, this is great. So just knowing that part and knowing who to reach out to and keeping up with those trends, you know, and that's what maintains relevancy for what you're doing.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: And how much do you have to work at this? So are you a solopreneur?
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Yep, pretty much.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Me too. Me too. And a lot of people listening are. So, like, how much time are you. Are you still putting in as much time as you did at the beginning? And you know what. What's happened to your life because of this?
[00:27:20] Speaker A: My life has completely changed for the better in so many ways, and I'm grateful for that. I mean, I spend as much time. Time as I want to spend on this because I love it so much. I eat, sleep, and breathe this, and then I go to the gym when I have time.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: I've had to put it in my calendar because otherwise I don't make time.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of joking on that, but I spend as much time as I want on it. But I know my personal boundaries and what I need to do. I spend time also volunteering, you know, with the National Breast Cancer foundation or with my advocacy organizations, working with them. It just depends on, you know, my workflow. But it's. It doesn't even really feel like work to me because I just love it so much. I wake up excited every day, and I hope that doesn't sound like a cliche. It's, like, really genuine for me. I wake up excited and ready to do this because I know there are lives to save, there's policy to promote, and there's just so much work to be done here. And it excites me to kind of be part of a change that could be happening long term.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think this. This movement to. To find it, early early detection. I mean, that's the key, right? We don't want people to be in those later stages.
What is the, what is the vision for you in terms of like in the next five, 10 years? What are you really hoping to accomplish with this business?
[00:28:44] Speaker A: I'm keeping an open mind because of course it's good to have goals. Like for this year, I want to hit over 100,000 downloads. I'm at 71,1000 as of February 13, 2020 today.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: So everybody download this, download this app.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Get it to over a hundred thousand.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Check the show notes.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: I have, you know, my download goals. I want to continue to speak about the policies that affect women and their breast health. I want to be able to, you know, whether I'm speaking to members of Congress, I'm speaking on the news or I'm speaking on a stage. I want women to feel confident and comfortable with, with doing their self exams, navigating the American healthcare system because it's so complex. And I could go on a whole tangent about that, but I'll, but I want long term, what I see is being part of solutions that bring transparency, accountability, affordability and accessibility to healthcare in our healthcare system.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Very nice. And so the app is available worldwide.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: Though it's available all over the world, I think in 147 different countries.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. Because we're in Canada over here at the Daring Dreams podcast. And so I know it's the same thing. It's like this advocacy needs to happen.
Early detection. I had another guest on who does thermography. Have you heard of that?
[00:30:01] Speaker A: Yes.
That is amazing.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: And so that is creating this movement. So I'm really hoping that with this episode people will take it really seriously. I know I'm going to give myself a breast exam and, and I'm gonna download the app because I actually, I'm 47 years old and I don't really know if I, I was shown how to do it probably in high school maybe and never again.
And so I'm kind of guessing at, you know, like the, the when I do it, but I don't really know. And so I think that the app is amazing and for people who like me, haven't been shown in a really long time, it's, it's time.
It's time. So let this be your sign to go do this and if you are a, you know, don't have breath. If you're a man, then tell, tell the people in your life that you care about.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Absolutely, Absolutely.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: Okay, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
I love your story, I love what you've done and I'm excited to be part of this movement with you. Sorry, really quick and I'm going to put it in the show notes. How can people who are listen and not reading find you?
[00:31:19] Speaker A: You can find me at feelforyourlife.com you can find the app in the Google Play Store or the App Store and then find me on social media. Feel for your life. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Jessica Balladad on LinkedIn. I talk a lot there as well. So come find me.
[00:31:38] Speaker B: Perfect. Thank you so much. Have a great day everyone.
