Capital, Culture, and Community with Hydrostasis founder Dr. Debbie Chen
Dr. Debbie Chen has many roles in life: parent, founder, advocate, scientist…and Muay Thai fighter. It was in her role as a fighter that she faced the personal struggle of hydrating properly for her sport. The rule of thumb 8-glasses-of-water-a-day is just a guess and not one that works for all. Armed with a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Tufts University, Dr. Chen set out to solve the problem and build a business around hydration monitoring. Her company, Hydrostasis, was granted a patent in January 2021.
Starting any company is a hard thing. As a female founder, it’s even harder because of the lack of access to capital and to potential investors. In 2019, female founders received 2% of venture capital funding in the US. For context, one male-founded company, Quibi, which shutdown in 2020, raised $1.7 billion – more than the entire funding for all female-founded companies.
In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Dr. Chen describes her journey from a life in research labs to fighting in the ring to creating a company and searching for funding.
Along with founding Hydrostasis, Dr. Chen has served as an Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of California San Diego, a Scientist at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, and Post-Doctoral Research Scientist at Scripps Institute of Oceanography and UCSD. She is a tireless advocate for underrepresented company founders and women leaders.
Connect with Dr. Chen: LinkedIn // Hydrostasis
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Video Highlights: Hydrostasis founder Dr. Debbie Chen
“Fighting was really a parallel to founding a company.”
“Reflect on the skills that you learned from the experiences that string your life together.”