WINSight // WIN NY x AWIE by Yotpo: Rethinking Women's Health and Wellness
On May 16th, 2023, the Women In Innovation New York Chapter, in partnership with Amazing Women in eCommerce (AWIE) by Yotpo, facilitated an in person panel on innovation in the wellness and women's health industry at Yotpo’s offices in Soho. The room was packed with women from across various roles, companies, and industries. Both new and existing WIN members gathered together to indulge in delicious snacks and drinks, and take in a superstar panel of trailblazing female disruptors in the health and wellness space. Moderated by Ruthie Berber, WIN NY Chapter Community Lead and Program Director of AWIE, the panel was an enriching and lively discussion around breaking taboos surrounding menopause and women’s intimate care, to designing a new category of “not a bra” and creating new options for family-building. We’ve captured a few takeaways our speakers shared on how they are radically transforming the health and wellness space.
OUR INDUSTRY DISRUPTING PANELISTS:
Catherine Balsam-Schwaber, Founder & CEO of Kindra, an innovative self-care company for women in menopause that offers body care and supplements for menopause and intimacy as well as focus and sleep.
Jessie Goldman, Head of Partnerships at Cofertility, a human-first fertility ecosystem making egg freezing, egg donation, and third party reproduction more accessible and empowering.
Laura Schubert, Co-Founder & CEO of Fur, the first daily pubic hair and skincare line great for anywhere and everywhere hair meets skin.
Annette Azan, Founder & CEO of Nuudii System, a radical innovation for boobs, where she has created a simple and comfortable solution that sits at the intersection of wearing a bra and going ‘bra-less’.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
THE JOURNEY TO OUR PANELISTS’ RESPECTIVE COMPANIES LARGELY STEMMED FROM A PERSONAL ‘AHA’ MOMENT, THAT UPON FURTHER ANALYSIS PROVED TO BE A PROBLEM SHARED AMONGST MANY WOMEN
Catherine at Kindra, shared how it stemmed from a misdiagnosis of fibromyalgia by a doctor, which actually turned out to be perimenopausal. For Laura, Fur stemmed from a conversation with her sister about the stigma surrounding pubic hair, which prompted her to start the company in 2016 with her middle school best friend. Jessie highlighted her alignment to the founders at Cofertility realization that the ‘best time to freeze eggs is when no one is talking about it’. For Annette at Nuudii, her company was born from the moment she couldn’t find a bra compatible with her wedding dress (and further analysis that 80% of women don’t like their boob shape).
OUR PANELISTS HAVE TAKEN THESE ‘AHA’ MOMENTS TO RADICALLY TRANSFORM THE HEALTH AND WELLNESS SPACE – WHICH AT ITS CORE HAS TO DO WITH SHATTERING STIGMAS ASSOCIATED WITH MENOPAUSE, PUBIC HAIR, FERTILITY TREATMENTS, AND BOOBS
Catherine at Kindra addressed how a key symptom of menopause is vaginal dryness (affecting over 80% of women), which causes feelings of discomfort and embarrassment. Her company seeks to make ‘women feel great at every age…it’s about women taking the power out of aging’. For Laura at Fur it’s all about getting people to ‘rethink body hair’, discussing body hair more proudly and having pubic and underarm hair options. Jessie at Cofertility talked about the opportunity to make the journey of fertility less ‘isolating and lonely’, and additionally make fertility treatments more ‘accessible and empowering’. For Annette at Nuudii she discussed how current bras on the market don’t enable women to move and feel empowered with what they have – “You want to be in your body and feel your body”.
UNDERSTANDABLY FOR STIGMAS SURROUNDING A WOMAN AND HER BODY TO BE SO PERSISTENT TODAY, SOMETHING MUST BE FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG WITH THE CURRENT LANDSCAPE OF HEALTH AND WELLNESS PLAYERS
Each panelist had the chance to share their perspective on what they thought traditional health and wellness companies were currently getting wrong. Jessie highlighted the deep inefficiency going on in the fertility space which is that ‘people can pay $50-$80K and still not come out with a child’. For Catherine in the menopause space, she emphasized how ‘nobody has a silver bullet’ to treat menopause, which is at odds with VCs looking for ‘quick breakout hits’, leading to a historical lack of investment, and therefore treatments in the space. There was a deep resonance amongst the panelists that they are each attempting in their own ways to spearhead new solutions to long-existing consumer problems in a category that has been more than resistant to change.
NOT ONLY IS BREAKING INTO A HARD CATEGORY TOUGH, BUT REACHING CUSTOMERS THROUGH NOVEL SOLUTIONS CAN ALSO PROVE TO BE A MASSIVE ROADBLOCK, ESPECIALLY NAVIGATING THOSE STRICT TIKTOK AND META GUIDELINES (Although luckily, we had a Meta powerhouse in the room to help find ways to meander across the guidelines and hack the algorithm!)
We probed the panel on their approach to reaching their target audiences and each had a slightly different approach. For Annette at Nuudii, a guerilla marketing approach has suited her company well. She inspires each of her employees to be creators – ‘we are all creators’, and post informative, authentic content styling and showing off the innovative solution of Nuudii boobwear. For Laura at Fur she leans on a 360 degree approach, leveraging digital marketing, but also has learnt ‘the value of trade shows and community events’. For Jessie in the fertility space, building up sponsors and supporters amongst the Medical community, ‘who are comfortable posting about Cofertility on Tiktok and Instagram’, has proved critical to promoting brand awareness, education, and trust.
TRUST WAS THE OVERWHELMING UNDERCURRENT OF THE EVENING – MISSION CRITICAL FOR YOUNG HEALTH AND WELLNESS COMPANIES TO ESTABLISH IN ORDER TO ATTRACT INVESTORS, GROW BRAND AWARENESS, AND BUILD PASSIONATE COMMUNITIES OF CONSUMERS
We heard from each of the panelists that they all focus intently on listening, and consistently iterating with their consumers and their respective needs. Setting a strong educational foundation is a must to building trust too, whether it’s to attract donors at Cofertility or highlight how bras on the market don’t support proper drainage at Nuudii. This theme was further hit home when we opened the floor up to the audience for questions. Whether it was ‘how to raise money from the pale, stale, and male VC audience’ to ‘how to build trust amongst consumers with alternative solutions in a traditional medicinal market’, or ‘when was the biggest moment when you had to pivot’, the answers boiled down to the importance of being a brand of high integrity. Laura from Fur emphasized that with consumers in the health and wellness space, the ‘bar is high’, making it important to get the product right the first time in order to build trust (Fur spent two years to nail packaging). Catherine echoed the same sentiment over at Kindra agreeing that the ‘early days were about gendering and gendering trust’.
It appears our game-changing panelists are all continuing to do just that, leading the way with trust and a focus on resolving deeply rooted consumer pain points to shatter stigmas and forge a brighter health and wellness future – one that is more accessible, inclusive, and efficacious. We can’t wait to see how these brands continue to grow and flourish in the coming future.
CLOSING OUT THE EVENING:
At the end of every event, we leave space for our “Ask and Give” session, in which we invite women to ask each other for favors and also give favors. Many women stood up to participate, including an eCommerce executive recruiter offering her services, a woman with experience working on three continents looking for an opportunity to jump into the startup space, and a woman from Meta offering to help to get Nuudii certified.
Attendees walked away from the evening with insight into the rapidly evolving women’s health and wellness space, and the women shaping and disrupting the space to make it more accessible, empowering, and diversified. They were able to speak with the panelists after and make new meaningful connections with WIN community members across diverse backgrounds and experiences. Some lucky members of the audience even received products from each of the panelists in a raffle.
Thank you to all who attended ‘Rethinking Women’s Health & Wellness’ and/or are catching up on it now! We can’t wait to see you at our next event.
RAPID FIRE QUESTION: ‘One Product or Service All Women Should Know’
Annette: All Bodies
Jessie: Modern Fertility
Laura: Local esthetician communities
Catherine: Face oil
OUR FAVORITE PANELIST QUOTES OF THE EVENING:
Jessie: “We think more women deserve more options. You spend your entire life trying not to get pregnant and then when you can’t, it’s like ‘what’.”
Annette: “I don’t need a bra, just a thin layer between myself and the world…we are calling BS on bras.”
Catherine: “How can none of my friends not know what’s going on and my young daughter one day be in a world where people have severe menopausal syndromes, but get misdiagnosed with prescriptions and surgeries?”
Laura: “Why are there no options to take care of hair eloquently like dog hair?”
Catherine: “When you think of women’s health in general it’s hard for those companies to be breakout hits. Usually male VCs are like ‘where’s the breakout hit like lipstick’.”
Jessie: “We joke about having donors in our DMs. It’s important for us to have people seen.”
Laura: “I have a hot take. When we first started I got advice which was not useful and that is to ‘just put something out and then pivot.’ I don’t think that is true in consumer [facing markets]. The bar is too high in consumer [facing markets].”
Jessie: “The fertility space is hot now. We don’t see it as zero sum or winner takes all…we want to give people a choice on all ends. That’s a win for each person and their journey.”
Annette: “It’s a pain in the butt to have boobs. We just want to be simple and comfortable. I want more and more people to compete with us, that will make it good for all women.”
Laura: “Our population is small compared to large CPG companies…the fight is not in health and wellness, but traditional advertisers. It’s rooted from shame and what’s wrong with you , so it’s important to band together, especially in advertising and try to flip the switch.”
Written by Makena Naegele, NY Programming Lead & Innovation Strategist & Capgemini