Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeff Hu.
Hi Jeff, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Our infertility journey took us to the lowest of the lows and the highest of the highs in both our personal and professional lives. In our struggle to start a family we traveled to four countries seeking the advice of infertility “experts”, and 6 rounds of IVF ending with a devastating miscarriage. By the last sad event, we were emotionally, physically, and financially spent.
Fast forward to today, we have twin daughters via surrogacy and a son via IVF. I call them my “million-dollar babies”. We are blessed that we were able to pursue surrogacy, an unconventional path to start our family at that time, and we shared that valuable experience with many intended parents that struggled like ourselves. Therefore, in 2018 we organically launched SurrogateFirst, one of America’s fastest growing and innovative surrogacy agencies with 15 staff across the US and Asia, to help traditional, same sex and single intended parents from around the world. Our agency provides superior journeys for our clients because 99% of staff have first-hand surrogacy experience. Since 2018, we have assisted over 300+ families to achieve their dreams of starting a family.
By the time most people revert to surrogacy they have experienced similar struggles of financial and emotional burdens on top experiencing societal pressures, discrimination, and self-shame. As experienced intended parents, it helps shape our agency policies and procedures to provide ethical surrogacy to help intended parents have a safe and secure journey. At SurrogateFirst we love what we do and do what we love.
Prior to founding SurrogateFirst in 2018, Lina Li and Jeff Hu lived in Asia for 15+ years as successful business entrepreneurs. They started an executive search firm that grew to 5 offices across China employing over 300 consultants before returning the US to raise their family.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
A Players. Because we believe in hiring staff that have intimate knowledge of surrogacy, hiring “A players” has always been a struggle. It is a fine balance to find someone that is a “subject matter expert” – being an experienced surrogate or intended parent AND someone that is highly skilled professional in case management or recruitment. Finding someone with both set of skills is a constant challenge for us to grow.
Growing Pains. From our previous experience growing our recruitment business from 1 staff to 300, we know that scaling a business is necessary and difficult. Every stage of this growth you need to rebuild and upgrade the business process, platforms and often its culture. We are very different when we were a 4-person company to a 15-person company. As we strive to double and triple our business, we are already developing the next set of tools, company structure, and service offerings to be able to position ourselves for success 2-3 years down the road.
Unexpected Challenges. Covid, the once in a generation pandemic, struck us early on as a business and many of our competitors closed shop. Early on, we relied on our international clients to build our business just as Covid was forcing global travel bans. However, based on finding innovative solutions to serve our international clients and pivoting early to diversify our client base we were able to double growth both years Covid impacted the US. We are always seeking to have a well-balanced plan for all aspects of our business, so no single challenge can overly impact our overall success, including a global pandemic.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about SurrogateFirst?
SurrogateFirst is a surrogacy and egg donation agency that assists intended parents in starting their families. We are composed 99% of former Intended Parents and experienced Surrogates who truly empathize with your current journey and who are here to serve you. We educate, lead, and guide intended parents through a surrogacy journey with expertise, compassion, respect, and personal attention at all times. Our goal is to WOW you with our approach so your journey in surrogacy is exceptional in every way.
As the founder and previous intended parent via surrogacy I understand the financial and emotional burdens, therefore we created our offerings with empathy for our clients and their struggles. Our “no match, no fee” policy provides a ZERO risk option for clients to work with us and not pay any fees until there is a successful match. Second, all our surrogates are “pre-qualified” meaning we have spent months collecting and reviewing their medical records, conducting background and drug screening tests before ever presenting a potential surrogate profile to intended parents saving them time and money. Lastly, we are professional that love what we do and provide the highest level of service with empathy.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you, and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
During the apex of Covid intended parents were not able to attend their babies delivery due to global travel bands. Many intended parents were very anxious and not able to be at birth; some even had to wait up to 3 months before being allowed to travel to the US. SurrogateFirst staff hosted many newborns in our own homes during this period, and many stayed with the surrogate until their parents could arrive. Our “business” is not a transaction, it is bringing a life to this world and building families, thus the line between our jobs and our personal lives often overlapped. During this period, it showed everyone that surrogates truly want to bless and help people and not just because of the compensation that is often the stereotype. In this instance, the best of our human nature was displayed.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://surrogatefirst.com/
- Instagram: @SurrogateFirst
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/surrogatefirst
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/surrogatefirst
- Youtube: @surrogatefirst46
