- Freya Williams was a CEO and her family's breadwinner before contracting long COVID.
- Her husband dove into his small business and landed an investment from Mark Cuban of "Shark Tank."
After Freya Williams contracted COVID-19 in April 2020, her life was upended — so was her family's.
She was the CEO of a sustainability-marketing and -strategy firm and her household's breadwinner. But COVID led to "long COVID" for her. That's when someone with COVID develops symptoms that persist for an extended period, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those symptoms could last weeks or months, and they can return even if they seem to go away.
Thousands of Americans have likely left the workforce because of long COVID, and Williams is among them. She frequently experiences headaches and extreme nausea, she told Insider, as well as symptoms that "feel like a flu that doesn't go away."
Though her husband, Tomo Delaney, worked in fashion for 20 years, he'd been a stay-at-home parent since 2010. When Williams stopped working, their funds started to dwindle, and they had to draw from their retirement funds to pay their bills. They'll soon say goodbye to their apartment in New York City's West Village, which they've lived in with their kids for three years — they've been in the neighborhood for 15 — because they're unable to afford the rent without Williams' salary.
"It leaves you completely without options because I tried to get back to work seven months in, partly because I felt better, but also I was freaking out that we were about to be penniless," Williams said.
But it wasn't long before working made her more ill.
"I went from running 5 miles a few times a week to being completely bedridden," she said.
For the past three years, Williams has been struggling to stay healthy while getting back to her normal life in the ways she can.
"It's like your life is prescribed by this invisible line, and you're stable if you stay on it, but it's like a trip wire. And if you step over it, you blow everything up," she said.
'We have to work on the assumption that she may never work again, so I have to succeed'
When Delaney became the family's sole breadwinner, in addition to taking on more of the parental responsibilities, he decided to ramp up an idea he'd been working on slowly for years after noticing how picky his kids were about eating.
"I would spend hours trolling the grocery store," he told Insider. "There was nothing out there. A family friend suggested something like this, and a lightbulb went off inside my head."
Delaney came up with Noshi, an edible food paint, leaning into the idea that kids would play with their food anyway.
It was a product that Delaney pitched in 2017 on "Shark Tank," ABC's Emmy-winning reality show where entrepreneurs seek funding from successful investors such as Barbara Corcoran. He didn't end up making it to the floor during that round, but in the years since, Walmart stores around the country have begun stocking Noshi.
Delaney rounded back to the "Shark Tank" team last year to update them on his progress, and he said it fast-tracked him back on the show. He ended up securing a deal with the billionaire Mark Cuban, who invested $250,000 for a 25% stake in Delaney's company.
"I thought it was a great product with a great opportunity," Cuban told Insider. "Tomo is a compassionate capitalist, a skill that I fully appreciate."
Demand for the product has become overwhelming, Delaney said, adding that "Shark Tank" came at the right time for him and his family.
"Freya getting sick has affected the growth of the company because I've been at home looking after the kids. Making them happy, keeping Freya healthy, and trying to run the business has been very tough," he said. "Launching a company is hard even when you don't have a wife who can't get out of bed, taking care of your kids' mental health and trying to protect them from the worst parts of it."
This year has been especially nerve-racking for Delaney's family. Williams was diagnosed suddenly with aggressive endocarditis in February, a serious inflammation of the heart. It led to a stroke, and she had emergency open-heart surgery and brain surgery, which were both successful, Delaney said.
But it added to their family's anxieties.
"We're all here holding our breath, hoping nothing more happens," he said. "I don't understand how my kids are holding on to their sanity."
Delaney added that his wife's suffering and his family's precarious position had changed his drive as a business owner.
"We were living on Freya's comfortable salary for a long time, but we have to work on the assumption that she may never work again, so I have to succeed," he said. "There is no greater incentive to succeed than being put in a position like that. I have to make this a success for the sake of my wife and family."