WINSight: Innovators Busting Taboos in Women’s Health
It seems like we hear about a new "innovation" in women's health and wellness every day. But between Pantone’s new “Period” color to Goop’s infamous jade eggs to period tracking apps that only take privacy semi-seriously, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between pseudoscientific claims and legitimate, impactful innovation.
With so much noise, what does it take to truly innovate? What does it take to de-stigmatize aspects of women’s sexual health and wellbeing? How can solutions be designed with all female bodies in mind? What role can experts, science, and efficacy play in an industry that often profits off of mysteries around women’s health?
On October 28th, WIN partnered with Lemon Lab to host a virtual panel called “Innovators Busting Taboos in Women’s Health”, where we tackled questions like these. Panelists, including the founders & leaders behind Modern Fertility, Tia, Uqora, and Unbound, shared leadership stories, trends and insights, and lessons in responsible innovation. Learn more about the panelists and dive deeper into key takeaways below.
“It is important to bring as many women’s voices into the design process as possible. If you want to design for all, you need to consider all voices.”
- Carolyn Witte
Our Panelists:
Carly Leahy, Co-Founder & COO at Modern Fertility
Carly Leahy is the Co-founder and CCO of Modern Fertility, a women's health company focused on making fertility information more accessible for women everywhere. A brand builder through and through, Carly has held brand and marketing roles at Google – leading creative for a grassroots initiative to help small businesses succeed online–and Uber, running content and creative strategy for new Uber products like UberEATS and UberHEALTH. At Modern Fertility, she’s focused on making the science of fertility more human and helpful for women everywhere.
Carolyn Witte, Co-Founder & CEO at Tia
Carolyn is the CEO and Co-founder of Tia — the next-gen women's healthcare platform building the relationship-based care model of the future, online & offline. As a design-thinker and storyteller, she's applied the brand-building and user-centric design playbook from her time at Google's Creative Lab to make women's care more personalized, preventive, data-driven, and soulful. A big believer in interdisciplinary teams, Carolyn has orchestrated a symphony of top tier women's health providers, software engineers, designers, and data enthusiasts to build a new model of women's care that can sustain the pressures of the modern healthcare system for patients and providers alike.
Jenna Ryan, Co-Founder & CEO at Uqora
Jenna is the CEO & founder of Uqora, the company tackling UTI relief and urinary tract health in a brand new way. In 2014, Jenna had 8 UTIs. She knew she couldn’t stay stuck in this cycle, but didn’t realize how many people like her were struggling with the same issue. Turns out, UTIs are the second most common infection in the US, second only to the common cold. Since its launch, Uqora has been able to help over 100,000 people with UTI relief and proactive urinary tract care. Before Uqora, Jenna spent her career in D2C growth and marketing, primarily in the tech industry.
Nisreen Hasib, COO at Unbound, WIN Advisory Council Member
Nisreen is the Chief Operating Officer of Unbound, a rebellious brand changing the way we talk about sex and sexual wellness. She began her career as a labor and employment attorney, fighting for the right of women and people of color to work with dignity and without harassment or discrimination. A graduate of Yale University and the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, she has been recognized as one of the 2020 100 Ethnic Minority Executives by EMpower and Yahoo Finance. She is a member of the Women In Innovation (WIN) Advisory Council, and a mentor and speaker for Communitas America, an accelerator supporting diverse entrepreneurs in the Bronx.
Our Moderator:
Taylor Majewski, Founder, Lemon Lab
Taylor is a journalist and the founder of Lemon Lab. Taylor created Lemon Lab to bring women’s health and wellness product recommendations out from “behind closed doors” and onto a platform that combines investigative journalism and real-person reviews to surface quality products in this category.
Takeaways:
Women make up more than half the population and yet, women’s health is considered niche. Together, the panel explored ways in which innovators can design effective products for both women and marginalized groups, speak more openly about topics that are traditionally deemed taboo, and most importantly, build trust with their consumers.
Prior to addressing these key topics, each panelist shared insight on how she became involved with her business:
After struggling to find a remedy for her chronic UTIs, Jenna Ryan, Co-Founder & CEO at Uqora quickly realized no products quite did the trick. Despite UTIs being the second most common infection in the US, there are few effective treatments. Although Jenna does not have a medical background, she sought to develop a product that addressed the “full UTI journey” with help from her co-founder, who has a background in molecular biology.
Nisreen Hasib, COO at Unbound found the experience of shopping for sexual wellness products uncomfortable, and even creepy. Nisreen joined Unbound with the goal of promoting accurate information about sex and wellness, as well as creating a comfortable environment for people to embrace their sexual wellbeing.
Like many of us, Carly Leahy, Co-Founder & CEO of Modern Fertility took issue with the idea that most women do not have a core understanding of their reproductive health. Carly’s motive in launching Modern Fertility is to demonstrate the value of understanding your whole body by providing tools to women before they are ready to have children.
We can all agree that the current healthcare system is complicated, to say the least. Carolyn Witte, Co-Founder, and CEO at Tia, struggled to navigate the healthcare system in her early 20s despite having access to the best health insurance. If she couldn’t, then who could? This experience is what inspired Carolyn to found Tia, a healthcare platform that seeks to provide women streamlined access to healthcare, both online and offline.
How can we build products for women and marginalized groups?
As innovators, we seek to solve complex challenges through creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking. For better or for worse, our personal experiences greatly influence how we think through these issues. Our moderator, Taylor Majewski challenged the panelists to reflect on their own products and questioned how we should think about designing products for both women and for marginalized groups. The panelists unanimously agreed that innovators should consider all perspectives when creating inclusive products. To do so, we must engage consumers from diverse backgrounds through all steps in the design process.
“It is important to bring as many women’s voices into the design process as possible. If you want to design for all, you need to consider all voices.” - Carolyn Witte
When thinking about design, Nisreen Hasib first asks herself “are we being exclusive or inclusive? [For example], can this product be used by transmen?” It is important to determine what other groups are using a product that can provide valuable information and insight throughout the development process.
When first launching Uqora, Jenna Ryan admitted to having blinders up and only considering her own biases when developing her product. As her business got going, she understood how people's experiences with UTIs varied and took an active shift from focusing on her own story to focusing on the stories of her customers.
To understand the Modern Fertility community, Carly Leahy created a platform for users to provide feedback and express their needs: “Building for ourselves can sometimes be a bad thing, and we need to be aware of that.” - Carly Leahy
We constantly ask ourselves how we can build trust with our customer.”
- Nisreen Hasib
What questions do you ask yourself while scaling and building your brand and business responsibly?
We’ve all heard the infamous startup mentality of “move fast and break things”. When building a new company, there is often enormous pressure to move quickly at every step, learning from mistakes and iterating as you go. But when it comes to people’s healthcare, this ethos isn’t an option. When designing products and services around people’s health, innovators must be responsible.
Carly and her team at Modern Fertility quickly realized their path would be different than that of a “typical” startup. While other companies were “growth hacking”, her team ran a clinical study. “We’re not going to put something into the world that is not good for women... That is our first priority. When it comes to women’s health, there were things we needed to prove out and so we had to take a slightly different path... The right partners will understand this.” - Carly Leahy
“For us [at Unbound], we do move quickly but we can’t break people’s trust. We’re developing and selling products that are meant to be used in the most intimate setting and the most intimate part of your body. We constantly ask ourselves how we can build trust with our customer.” - Nisreen Hasib
How can brands do a better job marketing responsibly for women?
As consumers, it’s hard to tell which brands are telling the truth, especially in the women’s health and wellness space. Misinformation, pseudoscience, and exploitative marketing claims in the health industry have dangerous impacts that result in mistrust and confusion. Brands can, and must, do a better job marketing to women, responsibly.
Particularly infertility, Carolyn Witte warns that there is a lot of marketing rooted in fear-mongering. Due to this, innovators in the health and wellness industry have an opportunity to differentiate themselves responsibly: “Products, services and brands backed by science, during a time of misinformation, can find an opening in a very crowded marketing environment and build trust in a time of distrust.”
Carly Leahy evaluates brands through utility in order to ensure marketing adds value, rather than to just sell a product: “How are we useful to her? If she sees this piece [of marketing], is it useful? Is it helpful? Is it educational? How can you be a company that is neutral, impartial, helpful, and educational when navigating care? If you feel fear as a consumer, it’s probably [irresponsibly marketed].”
Where do taboos still exist in women’s health?
While the women’s health and wellness space is seeing more innovation than ever before, there is still a long way to go. From menstruation to menopause to mental health, taboos remain in women’s health. Our moderator, Taylor Majewski, asked our panelists where they’re hoping to see more progress.
While Jenna Ryan believes that there is still a stigma around menopause, she’s been excited to see a lot more innovation in the space within the last year: “We’ve made strides in talking about reproductive health, especially recently, but we spend a little less time talking about the transition out of the fertility years.”
Carolyn Witte would like to see more of a focus on mental healthcare, stating that “mental health is women’s health and should not be delivered in a silo.” She also referenced a recent survey run by Tia that was designed to understand the top issues on women’s minds relating to healthcare. Across the board, mental health was the number one reported issue, demonstrating its need for innovation and destigmatization.
Nisreen Hasib points out the stigma that exists around pleasure and notes a lack of education around the topic: “Despite the fact that most people have sex, most people learn about sex from porn instead of from scientifically accurate sexual education… Because of this people don’t know what feels good or what should feel good. People need to start talking about sex in a way that is not only functional, but that is also pleasurable so that we can begin to understand our bodies.”
Advice from the panelists
Despite the challenges that still exist in the industry, our panelists inspired us to take action to help shape the future of women’s health. Whether you are an entrepreneur seeking to launch your own brand, or a consumer looking for a new wellness product, the panelists provided us with a few key takeaways:
You do not need a medical degree to launch a health and wellness business! If you face obstacles obtaining healthcare or inefficiencies with medical insurance, chances are, other women have the same experiences. There are plenty of opportunities for disruption and all women should feel qualified to innovate, regardless of academic or professional background.
If you are triggered or worried about a health and wellness product, trust your instinct. Advertisements and product descriptions should not scare you. Similarly, avoid products that are advertised using superlatives and definitive statements. If you feel uncomfortable, stay away.
When building a company, product or service prioritize trust with your consumer above all else. If you cannot establish a foundation of trust with your audience, you will struggle to grow. Health is a fragile topic for many, so be sure to approach it responsibly and thoughtfully.
Together, we must reframe how women speak and think about their bodies. We cannot craft innovative solutions in women’s health if we do not feel comfortable exploring ourselves and sharing our experiences with others.
Thank you to Carly, Carolyn, Jenna and Nisreen for sharing your experiences with us, and to Taylor for facilitating such a rich discussion. As always, we would also like to thank our WIN community for your participation in the event!
Editorial: Gabrielle Andrade and Charlotte Goldman
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