We're Tube-Feeding Parents Too
When our daughter Ivy came home from the NICU with a G-tube, we searched for an app to help manage her care. Nothing let us coordinate together. So we built one.
The Inspiration
Meet Ivy
Super hero. G-Tube Pro. Source of laughter and smiles.
After a rocky start in the NICU, Ivy came home with a G-tube. She's the reason Tubular exists, and our toughest product tester.
Every feature gets the Ivy test: if it doesn't work during her care routine, it doesn't make it into the app.
She keeps us honest, keeps us busy, and reminds us why this matters.
The Founder
Father, software engineer, tube feeding parent.
I studied computational mathematics and computer science at UW-Milwaukee, then spent years building healthcare ML systems — predictive models for opioid use disorder at Milliman (presented at Harvard Medical), machine learning infrastructure at Sift Healthcare. I thought I understood healthcare data pretty well.
Then Ivy came home from the NICU, and suddenly I was the one drowning in it. Medication schedules, feed volumes, supply reorders, appointment prep — all tracked across sticky notes, spreadsheets, and memory. The tools I'd built for hospitals didn't exist for families like ours.
Tubular is built with the same engineering rigor I brought to clinical systems, but shaped entirely by what our family actually needs at the kitchen table.
The Co-Founder
Vanessa Verzal
Milwaukee, WI
Mother, nurse, tube feeding parent.
I earned my BSN from Cardinal Stritch and spent years as a nurse before Ivy arrived. You'd think clinical training would make managing a G-tube at home feel routine. It doesn't. The gap between hospital protocols and real life at 3am is enormous.
I'm Tubular's first and most demanding tester. If a feature adds friction to Ivy's care instead of removing it, it doesn't ship. I also connect with other tube-feeding families to make sure we're solving problems beyond just our own.
Our decisions come from daily reality, not business strategy. Using Tubular for Ivy's care every day keeps us grounded — families first, always.
That's the whole approach: build what we need, test it on our own family, then share it with yours.
Mission & Values
Everything we build is guided by these principles: