Smartphone App Called Dot Uses A Patent-Pending Algorithm To Calculate A User’s Conception Risks

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Cycle Technologies is a social impact company that creates simple, effective reproductive health technologies to help address women’s contraceptive needs. Their most recent invention is a smartphone app called Dot which uses a patent-pending algorithm to calculate a user’s conception risks using solely her cycle lengths. Dot is currently undergoing the first ever, full-scale contraceptive efficacy study on a fertility app.

We wanted to learn more about their work and sat down with Leslie Heyer, the Founder of Cycle Technologies.

Q: Could you tell us something about the company and your history?

A: Cycle Technologies develops and brings to market contraceptive solutions that focus on the user’s needs. Our goal is to prevent unplanned pregnancies and help people have the families they want when they’re ready. We’ve developed and/or brought to market several products and technologies that are designed to help people use proven, effective family planning methods. These innovations include CycleBeads, the 2Day Method app, and Dot.

Q: Why did you start the company?

A: When I started the company in 2002 as a health consultancy firm, I was working on a project related to international family planning. Through this project we realized the incredible challenges that millions of women face in accessing contraceptive methods that meet their needs, and the huge burden that unplanned pregnancies place on women, their families, and their communities.

Q: How did your Dot app come about?

A: From our work we’ve seen that people are very interested in using a fertility awareness method, or a natural contraceptive method, if it’s easy to use. We have worked for years with another method – the Standard Days Method® which is used with a visual tool called CycleBeads®. People love it. But we knew we could do even more given the advancements in technology over the past few years, and the access that people now have to mobile devices with incredible computational power. We went back to the drawing board to see if we could evolve this approach and design something that could work for even more people, tailor to a user’s individual cycles, and potentially be even more effective. To do this, we worked with data scientists and reproductive health experts to develop a method based solely on period tracking using the technologies that we now have available. And voila! Dot was born!

Q: Why do you need to do a contraceptive efficacy study?

A: We think that it’s critical that if a person uses Dot to prevent pregnancy, then the Dot app should be fully tested so that a user can compare its effectiveness to other modern contraceptive methods offered today. No other fertility or period tracker has undergone this kind of testing. Dot is undergoing the same rigorous testing that other contraceptive methods such as IUDs, hormonal contraception, and condoms undergo.

Q: You’ve recently found a significant difference in how Dot Android versus iOS device owners use mobile fertility apps; tell us something more?

A: It is really interesting that we saw a significant difference in how users in the U.S. reported using the Dot app between iOS and Android platforms. People were more likely to use the Dot iOS app for pregnancy prevention and to use the Dot Android app for pregnancy planning. We’re looking more into this data to try and understand what might have driven the difference between the platforms and also to see how users’ reproductive goals may change overtime.

Q: What’s the achievement Cycle Technologies is most proud of?

A: I’m proudest of the impact that our work has had on people’s lives. When we started working in reproductive health, we were laser-focused on what we thought was important – effective, side effect-free, easy to use contraceptive methods. A lot of people thought we were crazy because what we were doing was so different from everything else in the contraceptive method mix. But we persisted and our work has had a huge impact globally. Cycle Technologies tools and technologies have been used by millions of women and have been integrated into health programs in 60+ countries – in particular many countries with the most unmet contraceptive need. To date over 5.5 million unplanned pregnancies have been prevented and 1.5 million pregnancies successfully planned using our products. What started out as a crazy idea has really made a difference. And with our new Dot app, I think we’re poised to do even more.

Q: What are your plans for next six months?

A: We will be looking at new ways to get our mobile technologies into the hands of people who can use them and measuring that impact.

Q: What’s the best thing about Cycle Technologies that people might not know about?

A: While we’ve been around for 15 years…we still act like a start-up. In all the best ways of course.