As Brilliantly founder Kristen Carbone knows, cancer survivors can go through an array of challenges after completing treatment. In addition to symptoms of fatigue, difficulty sleeping, memory problems and persistent pain, people in remission may be struggling with the aftermath of a mastectomy.
“No one expects that, after treatment, you might be depressed, be grieving your body or you might even feel worse,” Carbone said.
Carbone, who lost her mother to cancer and underwent a mastectomy to head off the disease, created Brilliantly, based in Providence. The company is part social support group, part program space and part product launch pad for women affected by breast cancer. In recent months, the company has gained traction with its heated bra insert designed for women who have had breast implant reconstruction and, as a result, experience an overwhelming sense of coldness.
A few days into the new year, Brilliantly is celebrating the launch of its Beta Android app and will soon move forward in its partnership with Mammogen, a California-based biotech, to study and give away the rechargeable insert, known as Brilliantly Warm.
Mammogen, which created a new liquid biopsy test for cancer, and Brilliantly announced their partnership in the fourth quarter of 2021. Carbone said like her company Mammogen has a leadership team invested in providing health education as well as providing support groups and products for women recovering from cancer.
As part of their next phase the companies will work to distribute 50 units of the new Brilliantly Warm and produce an exclusive book project that will be a collection of short stories, interviews and creative writing pieces from survivors. Carbone said the partnership would allow Brilliantly to expand testing.
“This will allow us to do a durational study and get feedback on how women use this in conjunctions with their experience,” she said.
To date, Carbone said, she’s raised about $800,000 by bootstrapping and talking to as many investors as possible. While she has male investors on her team, Carbone has made it a goal to bring in women from every generation — from their 20s to 90s — to back Brilliantly.
“Of course I have some wonderful male investors too, but I am really happy to be helping flip the wealth and power structure. I'm about to start raising my next round and am almost thankful for the challenges I've already come up against because I feel much more prepared,” she said. “As someone who wasn’t an entrepreneur, it was a tough hill to climb. There was an enormous amount of sexual harassment and there’s no HR there to make sure you get treated fairly.”
Brilliantly follows a direct-to-consumer business model as it starts to ramp up distribution of the Brilliantly Warm tech. Carbone said the company is starting to sell Brilliantly Warm on a few online marketplaces and are working with a handful of physicians and surgeons who will sell them in their boutique shops.
“Just last week we had our first user buy a second set of Brilliantly Warm so she could give it as a gift. In these early days, it's so important to get customers to fall in love with your product and refer friends and I'm simply tickled that it's started happening,” she said. “I felt strongly about meeting women where they were actively looking for information and solutions to quality of life issues — online communities and support networks — and then encouraging them to spread the word.”
