Tailored Remedy to launch beta product

MKEStartup.News last spoke with Tailored Remedy founder Abigail Crocker in July, as she was completing her participation in the gBETA business accelerator. The student-entrepreneur was preparing for her senior year as a biomedical sciences student at Marquette University, in addition to developing her emerging business and completing a fellowship through the Marquette University Entrepreneurship Program.

Since then, the determined entrepreneur has made great strides developing her software and has also won a few more pitch competitions. Crocker won a $7,500 grant after pitching in the 2024 Marquette Invitational Business Model Competition for Collegiate Student Entrepreneurs and won second place in the statewide Elevator Pitch Olympics, presented by the Wisconsin Technology Council.

Crocker describes Tailored Remedy as “AI software that democratizes medical information to present it in a clear and accessible manner for the patient. It would be marketed directly towards long-term care and home health care facilities. It works as a tool to help bridge that gap between the providers and the patients,” she said.

The software she and her team have developed uses a chatbot to answer healthcare questions in common language, pulling information from reliable sources and patient-specific healthcare surveys.

Crocker and her team are preparing for the launch of the beta version of her software in Q1 2025. She considered bringing on a technical co-founder to help navigate the creation of the tool, she decided to delay those plans due to the success of her contracted development team.

Like most founders, Crocker is concerned about funding her company until it begins to generate revenue. She is currently considering her funding options.

“After gBETA, I had a lot of interest from investors. People still reach out to me all the time. They’re interested in investing. But, I’m 22 years old. I’m a woman and I’m learning how to do these things and bring investors. Some investors like to take advantage of that. I wish that wasn’t the case… I didn’t want them to try to take advantage of me because I am still learning this whole process. I have not started a business before. There are so many things that I’m still trying to understand, so I decided not to go that route,” she said.

“Hopefully, with the beta launch, I’ll be able to pull in some more money and push it to a seed round. If I could push that seed round and take on Angel investors or take on smaller convertible notes, I think that might be more beneficial for me in the future instead of giving up equity, especially as I haven’t found a co-founder yet,” she continued.

“I still have 100% ownership in the company. I feel like that is an extremely hard thing to do going into the initial MVP (minimum viable product), but I think with the resources that I have access to, especially through Marquette, that’s the only way it’s been possible to come this far without taking on additional funding,” she said, adding “Obviously, I am also very grateful for all of the grant money,” referring to the funding she has won in pitch competitions over the last few years.

Soon after the software launch Crocker hopes to partner with a few Milwaukee area care facilities for pilot testing of the product. Her team is currently working to refine the user experience to meet the needs of elderly users with the goal of empowering patients and saving time for healthcare providers.

Crocker will graduate in May; she will spend the summer doing consulting work for the 707 Hub as well as lead Tailored Remedy into the next stage of development.

“I am going to be working with the 707 Hub, the entrepreneurship hub on Marquette campus, to help them build out the fellowship program. I am very excited about that because the fellowship helped me tremendously last summer and if we could make it some sort of incubator, I think that could be very beneficial to all Marquette students,” she said.

As Abigail Crocker prepares to take Tailored Remedy to the next level, her journey showcases the possibilities and resources available within Milwaukee’s startup community. With a clear vision for her AI-powered healthcare tool and her commitment to creating a healthcare solution that prioritizes both patients and providers, Tailored Remedy is poised to make a significant impact, and its progress will be one to watch in 2025 and beyond.