[Fully Managed] Amina Cush from Nurture Post Ep. 113

Daniela: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the First 100 Podcast. This is the podcast where we’re gonna be exploring the journey of entrepreneurs, business owners, agency leaders, and so many other cool people as they share with us the strategies, the challenges, and the triumphs that have led them to secure those first 100 customers.

Daniela: Hi, today we have a very special guest, Amina Cush. Hi Amina. How are you?

Amina: How are you? How is everyone doing?

Daniela: Okay, great. I’m very excited to have you today, Amina. Before we get started, just to break the ice, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Can you tell us a little bit about Nurture Care, what you do for anybody that doesn’t know about you or who you are?

About Amina and Nurture Postnatal Care

Amina: Yes, so my name is Amina Cush. I am the CEO and Co-founder of Nurture Postnatal Care. We provide postpartum recovery, support, and education for birthing families. And really, I was inspired to start Nurture after my experience and my partner’s experience with late-term pregnancy loss in March 2022. So my focus is really to bring education awareness and really empower families to have their own agency as they navigate their postpartum journey.

Daniela: That’s such an inspiring story that you were experiencing something like this yourself, which I think takes a huge emotional toll on a person. And being able to provide that help for other people. Which actually makes me wonder, when you experienced all of this, what gaps specifically or needs did you identify that were happening that made you want to go ahead and start a business that was focusing on postnatal care?

Identifying Gaps in Postnatal Care

Amina: Yeah, so what a lot of people don’t realize is that a lot of the care for pregnancy – we over-index in the prenatal period. So typically, a birthing person will have 14 prenatal visits and one postpartum visit, and in the postpartum period, we know that 52% of deaths happen in the postpartum period because of that critical gap.

So you get a six-week postpartum checkup. In that six weeks, you’re not seeing anyone. You could have complications. You’ll see a lot of postpartum mood disorders, postpartum hemorrhages, and there’s really no comprehensive care here in the United States that supports postpartum recovery. And so that’s kind of where Nurture Postnatal Care steps in is we really want to focus on not just providing the postpartum care for our birthing clients, but also the advocacy.

The advocacy piece of it, we really wanna focus on ensuring postpartum care is the standard of care for all birthing people and their families, and ensuring that they have the adequate education so that if they do need support in the postpartum period, even if it’s not coming directly from Nurture, they know the resources that they need to tap into to get the support that they need.

Daniela: Amazing. Yeah, I feel like postpartum – that time of your life probably is, I mean, I don’t have kids, but I can imagine it’s so insane because it’s such a huge change and shift in your life. You know, you go from being two to all of a sudden being three or if you’re a family of one or two kids or whatever, you know, it’s like a massive change and it’s sort of gonna stay forever.

So it definitely, I think these type of things are very useful for people, and I actually haven’t heard a lot about it, you know, like it’s not something that’s very universally spoken of. Which actually brings me to my next question, which is how has your vision for Nurture Care evolved since its inception? Has it sort of stayed the same or do you think that, you know, as you have experienced different clients, different situations, it has been changing?

Evolution of Nurture Care’s Vision

Amina: Yeah, so it’s so great that you asked that question because I think in entrepreneurship, having a growth mindset and not being afraid to pivot is extremely important. And we’ve pivoted since we actually launched Nurture.

When we initially started, our focus was just kind of the in-person postpartum care retreats. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re kind of a standard of care outside of the United States. So when a birthing person actually delivers, they’ll go directly into a postpartum care retreat where they have a doula, kind of a nurse, support education really to support the parent that delivered the child in their postpartum recovery. And that’s like standard in kind of like South Korea and other Asian countries. And that’s kind of part of the postpartum recovery space and culture in almost every country outside of the United States. We’re very unique in that we don’t understand the significance of recovery in the postpartum period.

So when we initially started, we focused on these postpartum care retreats. And then I recognize from kind of feedback from our clients and then also really studying the market a bit more, is that we want to ensure that our clients have accessibility. Our services are accessible to our clients and, in addition, ensuring that we have a unique set of products that supports different needs.

So we’ve pivoted from the in-person retreat to also offering in-home concierge care. So now you can actually book our services and we’ll come directly to your home to provide that postpartum recovery support. You don’t need to come to one of our retreats to get that postpartum recovery support.

And in addition, we’re building a marketplace as well that connects birthing people with the right postpartum care at the right time based on their specific use case. So if you’ve had a late term pregnancy loss, if you’re navigating postpartum mood disorders, you can go onto our marketplace and find the exact care you need anywhere in the United States. And that was something that we really thought through.

Really did a lot of market research to understand exactly what are the pain points of our customers. I think a lot of the times when you’re an entrepreneur, it’s easy to fall into that trap, to build what you think is right versus what is necessary and needed for your customers. So it’s very important to do the UX research, do the market research, really understand the customer pain points, and then build a product that resonates accordingly and not being afraid to pivot as well.

Incorporating Customer Feedback

Daniela: That’s true. That’s so important, which is sort of listening to what feedback your customers have. I wonder, you know, what is that approach that you guys did take to incorporating all of the feedback that I’m assuming you were getting from parents into the structure and design of your services to what you have now that you mentioned is, you know, like in-home care, care for postpartum mood disorders, et cetera. All of these different things that you did while you were doing that market research, how are you able to incorporate all of the feedback or what approach were you doing with all of these parents that were, you know, I’m assuming also like people have different opinions based off of their experiences.

Amina: Yes. So I think one of the biggest things is actually getting out and connecting directly with your customers. So we host postpartum education workshops and we ensure that they’re free so that everyone has access to this information. And when we host the postpartum workshops, we then have kind of like a follow-up survey to not only ask them about the workshop, but ask them what their needs are in the postpartum period. Like what are you looking for? What are you seeking? Where are the gaps that you’ve seen in your care and how can we support you in kind of navigating your postpartum journey?

And then more importantly, bringing the partners in, bringing the non-birthing parent into that conversation. Because I think culturally, particularly in the United States, that’s also a gap as well, right? The mental load is on the birthing parent to have all the information, the breastfeeding support, the feeding schedule. When does the child need to go to the pediatrician? You know, everything that’s acquired in the postpartum period. All that information kind of falls on the birthing parent who’s already navigating their postpartum recovery.

And what we’re doing differently is all the partners are invited to the workshops. They get the information as well. And then they can provide their feedback. So we have that unique understanding of not just the birthing parent, but the non-birthing parent because they’re a customer as well. And I think they, that partner, the dads, any support person that’s included in that equation, I think what happens is that they’re kind of left out.

And I was fortunate to have the experience of a doula that included my partner in that conversation. So he wasn’t confused when the baby came. Like he knew exactly what I needed. He knew exactly what the baby needed. And more importantly, we instilled in him the confidence that he could be just as successful as a parent. And so I didn’t really have the frustration of the mental load in the postpartum period because both of us shared that information. And when we have our workshops and we get that feedback, we incorporate it into the product roadmap, which really helps us to again, build a product and services that resonate with our customers.

Daniela: That’s so important. I feel like yes, having both parties involved has been a huge issue for, I would say specifically women who have sort of had the history of being put in the spot of like having to be the ones that are doing this. But like you said, like any birthing parent that is going through this knows that, especially if you’re the one breastfeeding, I think you have to have the baby around with you at all times.

Amina: Exactly, exactly.

Business Logistics and Strategy

Daniela: So it’s huge. I wanted to switch the topic a little bit to more of the less fun side, which is the logistical part of having a business regardless of what industry we’re having it in. I am curious about specifically for you and for Nurture Care, what were the challenges that you faced when it came to actually balancing cost versus sustainability versus quality of your services versus accessibility for parents, and adapting to all of these different situations and different needs that different people had.

Amina: So I think one of the biggest things that for me has always been my motto is two things. It’s test and learn and subtract.

So on the test and learn piece, what does that mean? Test and learn means see what works. Do that litmus test. Put the product out in the market, get the feedback, try to understand what’s working, and once you get that feedback, then you adjust accordingly. And then once you make the adjustment, subtract, for me, that means less is more.

What I find from a lot of entrepreneurs is that you want to reach as many customers as possible and have all the product lines and all the SKUs and all the services, but that doesn’t always work, right? The focus is getting the customer that provides the best lifetime customer value, and I think what we tend to forget is that when we cast that net, we want the customer that is going to have the best retention, not the customer that’s going to purchase once or use a service once and then never see us again.

So if you find that there is pricing services, a product that you see is resonating more with the customer, then drop the rest of those SKUs, drop the rest of those services, and that starts in the very beginning. You know, the testing, the learning, the iterations. Don’t be afraid to do that, and again, more importantly, starting with the market research, starting with the UX research first.

The pain points are the most important thing. You have to take your ego and yourself kind of out of the equation because it’s not about you, right? You’re in service to the customer. My background is in product marketing, and I come from Amazon, so a lot of my thinking is always around kind of customer obsession, which was one of our leadership principles. If what we’re building does not add value to the customer, then it has to go.

I think you have to have a framework for decision making as an entrepreneur, because you’re wearing a lot of hats. You’re being super scrappy, you have way less resources, so you have to decide kind of where you put your energy. And the way to decide that again, is testing and learning, doing the market research, kind of building the foundations and understanding what is resonating more so that you can design a product, design a service that’s really going to resonate with customers.

And once you find that sweet spot, once you see, hey, this is the service that’s getting more sales, this is the product that’s getting more sales, now you wanna subtract right? And really hone in on that, on that product. So what I’ve seen is, you know, you have a bunch of different services and SKUs and you’re not able to perfect that particular service or that particular product, versus when you subtract and you find the service or product that really resonates, now you’re able to perfect on that.

Now you’re able to add more features, you’re able to add more product lines because, hey, this resonates with the customer. It’s really servicing them. They really see that this is adding value, and now you can build on that by adding additional features, services, et cetera. And so for me, that’s kind of been my framework for decision making as an entrepreneur is to do fewer, better things.

That’s the focus. Right? And once you do that, you perfect kind of your craft and you really perfect your product roadmap and your value prop. Then you can decide if you wanna launch another product. But before you even do that, you wanna get to that point, right? Understanding the pain points, understanding the customer, and then ensuring that you iterate on the product so that it resonates with that customer.

The Restaurant Menu Analogy

Daniela: What you say just reminds me of, like, when I go to a restaurant and they have a massive menu with like 25 pages of different drinks and food that all I feel is overwhelmed with the amount of options where I’m just like, this is too much. I don’t know what to pick. And then usually when I’ve gone to restaurants like that, what they have is just a lot of already pre-prepared meals that they just microwave and they serve. So at the end of the day, it’s not even that good.

Amina: Mm-hmm.

Daniela: You know, whereas when you go to a restaurant that has like five plates and that’s it, and they might like take a little bit longer to serve the food, but then when you get it, it’s like, wow, this is great meal. That’s kind of like how you’re, what you’re saying, what it translates to in my mind.

Amina: Yeah. And honestly that’s a perfect analogy. As the entrepreneur, you’re the chef, you’re creating the menu, right. You are the person who is the subject matter expert on that product. And when you build a menu that is simple, that is well crafted, you’ll find that the customers keep returning versus the diner menu that’s 35 pages.

You cannot be a jack of all trades, master of none. You see what the outcome of that is, right? Because when you go to the places that serve the french toast, the chicken tenders, the enchiladas, it’s like none of it’s good. It’s very difficult to perfect your craft when you have too many balls in the air. So I think that’s such a great analogy, Daniela, and really important for entrepreneurs to understand how to kind of focus their energy as they’re navigating their journey.

Daniela: Yeah. And I feel like once you have, like when you’ve mastered one thing, you can also start doing other things because you’ve already gotten so good at this one thing that that’s like, okay, now I can do this other thing.

Amina: Correct. Correct. I think too many irons in the fire is always difficult to navigate and really puts you in a position where you can’t, again, perfect your craft. And sometimes especially in Western culture, it’s like producing and doing and doing. Sometimes it’s not always about doing. Sometimes it’s also about taking a step back and reevaluating and pivoting, et cetera.

Understanding that building products is an art and a science and taking it from that perspective versus the constant doing and creating versus iterating and perfecting, I think that’s a better framework to come from from an entrepreneurial perspective.

Building Customer Relationships

Daniela: Actually, I think that’s a very, very interesting take. I mean really, really accurate. And I think especially for your specific product and business where it’s so customer facing, right? Like it’s not just, if I were selling umbrellas, at the end of the day anybody could buy an umbrella and my customer can be the lady down the street, or it can be the CEO of like a really big company. It doesn’t really matter because they’re gonna be purchasing an umbrella, but your business is so facing, like the customer relationship for you is so important.

So having that care is a lot more, I would say, valuable than if you’re just making a product that is sort of, you know, universal in some way. Which actually I wonder, with such a hugely customer facing business, like when with the relationship with your clients, with your customers being so important, how has that sort of situation been when it comes to building relationships with customers, with parents, with all of these people that are facing, I think it’s also such an intimate time for people’s lives. It’s huge, right? For most people to have children and having to incorporate all of these new things in their life. So I would imagine that Nurture Care is playing a huge, huge role in these people’s lives. So how has that approach of building relationships been working around it with people?

Amina: So I think the first thing is that we’re people, right? As human beings, it’s natural to want to have a human connection. So if as a human being you recognize your humanity and others, it’s very easy to make that connection, right? So for me, I have that lived experience, so not only am I a mother, I’ve also experienced late term pregnancy loss. Right? So when I see a family coming in, that’s first time parents, I immediately connect with them. Right? And I know I try to go back to what I needed in those moments.

And I think sometimes we often forget about that piece, right? Empathy is not just feeling sad for someone, it’s really understanding their feelings, their thoughts, and being able to communicate with them in a way that supports them, right? So I think when I interact with families, I’m coming from a space of, I’ve had this lived experience. I know exactly what you’re navigating and I want them to feel supported.

We recently just hosted a workshop last weekend. A bunch of new parents in the room, and I see their faces and they’re eager to take in all the information. And I was there, you know, and what I tell them is that this is your journey. It’s no one else’s, right?

So typically, what I’ve seen in postpartum, not just with myself but with friends as well, is everyone has advice, everyone has information, and then what you tend to do as the birthing parent and even as the partners, you sometimes will tune out your own intuition. And what I tell these families is that your intuition is the most important thing. That is always gonna be your North Star. Whether you’re navigating a conversation with your provider family, if something doesn’t feel right, you can say no.

And so for me, I think really being able to build on the lived experience that I have and connect with other human beings because I deeply empathize with them. Right? Until I became a parent, I didn’t know, and I’m always honest about that, right? I’ve spent a lot of time around children. I have a lot of kids in my family. I love kids, you know, I’ve watched kids. But until you become a parent, until you are navigating pregnancy, postpartum relationships with family postpartum, you have no idea what that feels like as someone who’s just given birth and now somebody wants to see the baby, someone that’s just given birth and you feel terrible, but you feel guilt as well because you want to show up for your partner in this particular way.

These are all the things that you’re navigating as a birthing parent. And so for me, when I have these conversations, I’m coming from a space of compassion and empathy. And I really want people to feel that they’re not alone in this journey. And then more importantly, their agency is the most important thing. If something does not feel good, if something does not feel right, no is a complete sentence. That’s something I had to learn.

And so that’s something that I really want to impress upon all of these new, newer families and even families that are now coming into our space with their second child, is that that connection that I have with them is really to support them and ensure that they feel empowered in their postpartum journey because even as I’m giving them information, I want people to question everything.

Like that was something that my doula taught me is like, yeah, I can give you this information, but if something doesn’t resonate with you, do your research. And that’s really what my focus is, is empowering these families is for them to do their research and ensure that they feel supported in their postpartum journey.

Daniela: And also ’cause like I feel like what’s right for you might not be right for the other person and like the other way around as well. Like everybody has different things that fit them more. Right. Especially with parenting. I mean, it’s such a unique experience for everyone.

Amina: Yes, exactly.

A Personal Story

Daniela: And I mean, I feel like, I just think of my mom who had twins, right? I’m not a twin, but I have sisters that are twins, and when they were born, it was a really difficult pregnancy. Like it was a high risk pregnancy from the get, she had to be bedridden for a long time towards the end of the pregnancy, and then she had them through a c-section. I don’t remember the name of the disease that she had, but she had to be sent to the ICU. It was like a huge deal for her. The twins were put in an incubator because they were born prematurely, so they had to be taken out before, at like seven or eight months. So they were really tiny.

And I was super young when that happened, so I don’t have any memory but my mom, like later on in my life she told me that the doctors literally told my dad like, you should probably be prepared for her to die and like, be a single parent from now on. Like, be ready for that. And you know, he’s having two kids in an incubator. We were two sisters back at home. So it’s like, okay, now I’m facing like single dad alone with four girls and like all of these things. And then my mom’s dying in the other room and it was like a really difficult time for them.

And then, from what I understand, she ended up getting better obviously because she’s there. But, she had to go home after this really huge experience with these newborn babies that were also requiring a lot of special care because they were premature. And I mean, I know that it was such a toll on them. And all I can think about is like nothing was, there wasn’t anything, any system or anything there set up to help with all of this. You know, like my mom had all of the, she was recovering from just like a normal birth of twins. She was also recovering from a really bad illness. She was recovering from the trauma of nearly dying. My dad was also dealing with all of this. They have twins, they have two other kids. So it just makes me think of like, well, yeah, like something like this would’ve been really helpful for them at the time, I think, to navigate this whole thing.

Amina: Yeah. And it’s interesting and I thank you for sharing that story, Daniela. And this is honestly, like why I do what I do, because just you telling me that until I got into this space, there are a myriad of postpartum families that have experienced postpartum trauma and traumatic births, and that alone requires postpartum support even if you didn’t have traumatic birth.

So it’s so interesting that your mom, I’ve heard these stories like over the course of my experience and experiences in the last two years, there’s been so many of those stories and that’s actually horrific, right? You know, to navigate a traumatic birth, to navigate, you know, to your point, almost dying and then to come home. You’re alone basically. Right? You have your partner, but he’s also navigating this with you, right?

And that that’s really where we step in and provide that support. You know? So like our postpartum doula was there not just to support me, but also my partner, right? She would cook meals for us. She would answer any questions that he had, and the emotional support is so necessary. I think we forget about the non-birthing parent. Like your dad went through a lot.

Daniela: No, for real. Like I always think about that, like, yes, it was difficult for one, for the person going through the medical problems, but it was also for the person that’s just kind of there thinking that their partner’s gonna die. Right?

Amina: It’s very traumatic and again, this is where like I really want to be an advocate for postpartum care, not just for the birthing parent, but for the partner, right? Because if there is a traumatic birth, if they don’t understand the things that they may need to do in the postpartum period to support their partner or the child, this is where postpartum education and postpartum doula support, that’s where it comes in.

It’s so important as a family and it’s a force multiplier in ensuring that families feel supported, feel connected, and more importantly that they stay together after birth because those are things that people don’t talk about. Right? I know if you have a pregnancy loss, a lot of the times families because it’s so traumatic and they don’t have the support that they need, those relationships dissolve.

If you don’t have that support, even with what your parents went through, those relationships can sometimes dissolve. And so this is again, why postpartum care is so important, and supporting the maternal health crisis that we’re currently in right now that’s disproportionately impacting black and brown women, and then in turn, just supporting our families. Families need to feel supported after birth. It’s a significant event in your life, and you shouldn’t be left to fend for yourself and do that alone.

Daniela: Yeah. And I think like what’s huge and what you’ve said to me is just that it’s such a common thing, you know, like a bunch of people are having kids and a bunch of people have complications with birth. It’s not even like a thing that happens to one in a million people. This is happening all the time, every day to millions of people all around the world.

Amina: Yes.

Daniela: So, you know, having that care I think is huge and really important and probably a huge step that we could take with healthcare. Also just education wise, I think we’re not very educated on this topic.

Amina: No, no. At least not here. On this side of the world. I think everywhere else is just a bit different culturally. But definitely in Western society, particularly in the United States, it’s just not a standard thing to inform people on physiological birth. And then what happens in the postpartum period.

Closing and Rapid Fire Game

Daniela: Yeah, no. This is almost all of the time that we’ve had today and I think this has been such a meaningful conversation, Amina. It’s great to hear from people like you who do things like this because it resonates with me. I think businesses that are helping improve the world and help people are the best kind because, you know, you’re moving it forward and you’re fighting for something that’s really important and that it’s also not talked about nearly enough. I think it’s one of these causes that I think we should have everywhere, but we probably don’t, but we probably should. But, just to switch it up a little bit, because we’ve been talking about such difficult things, I have prepared a game for us.

Amina: Yay.

Daniela: It’s a rapid fire, so I’m setting it up on my phone as we speak. I’m gonna do a one minute timer for you. And we’re gonna go through 20 questions. We’re just gonna try to see how many questions we can get through in one minute. Just to put a little bit of pressure on you, no one has gotten through the 20 questions, and I’m trying to see who that guest is. Everybody has been a loser so far, so no pressure.

Amina: No pressure. Let’s see.

Daniela: We’ll see how far we get. Don’t think about it too much if you have to lie, just so that you can come up with an answer. Just do it if you want, if you really wanna win the game. And I’ll just go ahead and start. Let’s go coffee or tea.

Amina: Tea.

Daniela: Early bird or night owl.

Amina: Early bird.

Daniela: Favorite social media platform?

Amina: Instagram.

Daniela: Go to karaoke song.

Amina: Backstreet Boys. Everybody’s back.

Daniela: Books or podcasts?

Amina: Books.

Daniela: One word that describes you.

Amina: Not superfluous.

Daniela: Vacation destination.

Amina: St. Bart’s.

Daniela: Most used app on your phone.

Amina: ChatGPT.

Daniela: Favorite emoji.

Amina: Kiss.

Daniela: What’s your hidden talent?

Amina: I can do improv. I can do different voices.

Daniela: Go to comfort food.

Amina: Pizza. A thousand percent.

Daniela: Superpower you’d want for a day.

Amina: Time travel.

Daniela: Who inspires you the most?

Amina: Me.

Daniela: That’s it. Oh, we got through 13 questions. Not bad. I mean, the highest has been 15, so 13 is actually pretty good. Amazing. Yeah. Great. And you were pretty good at answering them too. ‘Cause I like some people get stuck with the karaoke song question particularly, and I’m always just like, just say whatever.

Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Daniela: So you did really great. Amina, thank you so much for doing this today. Now before we finish, I do wanna give you the space to tell all of our viewers and all of our listeners where to go if anything that we spoke about today resonated with them, if they want to know about you, your business, if they want to go and see about your services, your product, the floor is yours.

Amina: Yes. So if you are a birthing parent, parent to be, a partner that’s interested in postpartum recovery services for your wife, partner, et cetera, you can visit www.NurtureCare.co. All of our packages are online. In addition, we host educational workshops in the Westchester, New York area.

So if you have any questions about our services, you can feel free to email [email protected] or visit NurtureCare.co for any questions on our services. So looking forward to supporting all of our new families in their postpartum recovery journey.

Daniela: Amazing. Yeah. And we will be adding in the links to your website and all necessary things to the description of this video just so that everybody can easily find you. Awesome. And thank you so much for being here, Amina. It was great having you today.

Amina: You as well. Thank you so much, Daniella.

Daniela: Thank you and everybody else. I will see you on the next episode. Goodbye.

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