????一年前，貝寶（PayPal）創(chuàng)始人麥克斯?列夫琴參與推出了“好孕”應(yīng)用軟件Glow。現(xiàn)在，這一應(yīng)用已經(jīng)帶來了可觀的成果——2.5萬名女性通過它成功晉級準媽媽。興奮不已的用戶發(fā)來的感謝信如雪片般飛來，不少信函還帶有新生寶寶表情驚異的照片，這不免讓人覺得心里暖烘烘的。

????事實證明，幫助用戶升級為父母只是Glow公司邁出的第一步。它的創(chuàng)始人懷揣著更大的愿景，那就是把研究引進一個缺乏數(shù)據(jù)的領(lǐng)域。他們想用Glow應(yīng)用收集的生育周期信息來更全面地提高女性健康水平。這種抱負已經(jīng)催生了一些新的項目，包括推出一個新的懷孕后應(yīng)用軟件，收集匿名用戶信息供醫(yī)學(xué)界進行研究。

????對不熟悉它的人來說，Glow的功能就是收集生育周期信息。它用算法來跟蹤女性的經(jīng)期，計算她們的排卵時間，從而最終預(yù)測下一次受孕機會窗口從什么時候開啟。這是一款免費的應(yīng)用軟件，同時也提供一個名叫Glow First的應(yīng)用內(nèi)購買項目【《財富》（Fortune）一年前率先對Glow進行過報道】。

????為了實現(xiàn)研究目標，Glow必須獲得范圍更廣的女性用戶，而不僅僅是那些正在設(shè)法懷孕的女性。該公司表示，目前一半的Glow用戶都不是為了受孕，而是用它來了解自己的健康情況，比如是否有子宮內(nèi)膜異位的跡象（該公司沒有說明Glow的用戶總數(shù)）。

????Glow公司首席執(zhí)行官麥克?黃說：“我們可以獲得數(shù)據(jù)并且運用這些信息，然后把一些有用的東西反饋出去。”

????這就是最初的計劃。去年8月份建立這家公司后，列夫琴（現(xiàn)任該公司執(zhí)行董事長）和麥克?黃做出了一些調(diào)整，目的是吸引那些并未嘗試受孕（通常被簡稱為TTC）的女性。1月份推出的Glow 3.0版專門為那些只想追蹤并更好地了解自身經(jīng)期的女性提供了一些新功能。

????7月份，該公司又向前邁進了一步——它推出了另一款移動應(yīng)用軟件Glow Nurture，對象是準媽媽們，而不是想受孕的人群。這款新應(yīng)用的核心就是回答一個問題：“我懷上寶寶了，然后呢？”

????對于Glow Nurture，黃表示：“過去幾個月中，許多人都希望我們推出同樣的數(shù)據(jù)驅(qū)動型軟件（就像Glow一樣]，而且質(zhì)量要高，設(shè)計要貼心。”

????One year after PayPal founder Max Levchin helped launch Glow, the fertility app has some impressive results: the service takes credit for 25,000 pregnancies. As notes stream in from excited users, often accompanied by photographs of astonished newborns, it’s hard not to get the warm fuzzies.

????Helping people become parents, it turns out, is just the start for Glow. Its founders have a bigger vision in mind: to add research to a field where data is lacking. They want to use the information Glow collects about reproductive cycles to improve women’s health more broadly. This has led to several new ventures, including launching a new post-conception app and gathering anonymized user information for use in studies for the medical community.

????For the unfamiliar, Glow collects information about reproductive cycles. It uses algorithms to track the progress of a woman’s period, calculate when she’s ovulating, and ultimately predict when the next window of fertility opens. The app is free, though there is a paid option called Glow First. (Fortunefirst wrote about Glow a year ago.)

????To accomplish its research goals, Glow must market to a broader group of women and not just those who are trying to get pregnant. Today, Glow reports that half of its users aren’t even trying to get pregnant—they use the app to take advantage of the insights it can provide, such as warning signs for endometriosis. (The company won’t say how many people in total are using it.)

????“We’re able to just get the data and apply information so that we can return something useful,” says Mike Huang, Glow’s chief executive.

????This was the plan from the start. After launching Glow in last August, Levchin (who serves as executive chairman) and Huang made modifications to appeal to women who weren’t trying to conceive (often shortened to the acronym “TTC”). Glow 3.0 launched in January, with new features intended for women who only want to track their periods and better understand their menstrual cycles.

????In July, the company took another step. It launched Glow Nurture, a separate mobile application tailored to pregnancy rather than fertility. In essence, the new app intends to answer the question, “We’ve conceived. Now what?”

????“We’ve been getting tons and tons of requests over the past several months for the same data-driven approach [as the original Glow app] with a high-quality, warm design,” Huang says of the new app.