Business of the V

Suhani Jolata is Building a Platform of Change For Women in India

Deeply entrenched stigmas and taboos are hard to overcome. But if there’s anyone who can effect transformational change it would have to be Suhani Jalota, the social entrepreneur Dr. Dweck and Rachel welcome on this episode of The Busine$$ of the V. She has not only founded the visionary Myna Mahila Foundation to educate and debunk disempowering myths about menstruation prevalent in India, she’s ultimately seeking to do nothing short of revolutionize the Indian economy to equalize the power of women within their households. It’s an amazing agenda for anyone, but particularly for such a young woman.

Suhani has secured a PhD in Health Policy and Economics as well as an MBA at Stanford while overseeing the mission of the Myna Mahila Foundation, which was founded in 2015 to provide a voice for adolescent girls and women in marginalized communities. She is building a team and network for young female entrepreneurs and leveraging technology to provide access to job opportunities throughout the world – work that has not gone unnoticed. She has been honored with the 2017 Queen's Young Leader Award and featured in the Forbes Asia 30 under 30, not to mention receiving an invite to Meghan Markle’s royal wedding. (Yes, the experience was amazing!)

You’ll learn about the origins of her vision (as an undergrad), the cultural barriers her organization is breaking down and what is on the horizon for a young woman who clearly has barely begun the work she intends to do. It’s exciting and heartening for Rachel, who shares an alma mater (Duke University) and longtime alliance with Suhani. “The gender attitude has to change,” says this social entrepreneur. And she’s developing the tools, network and platforms to do exactly that!

Subscribe to our newsletter and complete show notes for every episode at https://businessofthev.com 

This Device Disrupts Hot Flashes For Women in Menopause

Could it be that menopause is finally getting its day in the sun? On this episode of the Busine$$ of the V, Dr. Dweck and Rachel showcase the latest example of a femtech product addressing a massive, never-ending, recession-proof market opportunity. Liz Gazda, CEO of Embr Labs, is introducing us to a therapeutic device that disrupts hot flashes at the touch of a button. It’s a welcome solution for menopausal women, who spend an average $2,000 per year on various treatments to ease persistent symptoms.

 

This conversation underscores the significant loss of productivity associated with women suffering chronic menopausal issues. At what should be the peak of their careers, many are sidelined by a pain cycle with very real social and economic repercussions. The Embr Wave, however, offers a non-invasive alternative that has been a game changer already for more than 100,000 customers in 170 countries.

 

Liz explains how the thermo-receptor technology was developed, why it differs from other wearable devices and whether we can expect to see its price point come down in the future. We also learn about the specific process through which the Embr Wave disrupts hot flashes by sending a burst of cold through neural pathways uniquely designed to block pain. It essentially breaks the cycles of anxiety and cortisol spiking that compromise sleep and otherwise slow women down.

 

About 70% of women struggle an average of 7.4 years with untreated menopausal symptoms. It’s a huge, huge market with voracious demand, no expiration date and outsized buying power. With Liz at the helm, Embr Labs is going to be one of the femtech innovators to watch in the years ahead!

 

Visit https://businessofthev.com to join the community, listen to previous episodes and get complete show notes of the V podcast.

How to Raise Venture Capital for FemTech Startups

Women’s sexual health is more than a huge (often untapped) market with outsized impacts, it’s also a huge investment opportunity. Learn more about this sector and its many verticals from Carli Sapir, Founding Partner at Amboy Street Ventures, who is sharing with Rachel and Dr. Dweck the ins and outs of raising capital for “femtech” and related startups on this episode of Busine$$ of the V. It may still be a challenge to pitch products and platforms associated with women’s sexuality and pleasure, for instance, but entrepreneurs – mostly women – are out there cracking open space for candid conversation, education and very real financial returns.

 

Carli explains the focus of Amboy Street Ventures as well as its philosophy, which includes a mandate that at least 70% of its investment portfolio go towards female-founded and/or led companies. They’re looking to address overlooked or under-served target markets and fill gaps in areas such as LGBTQ and gender-affirming care, abortion and contraception access and women’s sexual pleasure. Innovations on the horizon not only promise huge profitability but also transformational impacts – such as the introduction of Contraline, an implantable, reversible form of male birth control now under FDA trial and Go Aunt Flow, a free dispenser of pads and tampons in public places. Women’s sexual health and pleasure is big business, and ripe for disruption. “Hopefully we’ll live long enough to see the end of people using the expression ‘Women’s health is niche,’ ” sums up Rachel. “Then we will know that we’ve made some impact on the planet!” The momentum in this space is palpable – and also undeniable.

 

Subscribe & listen to previous episodes of the Busine$$ of the V podcast Website: https://businessofthev.com

 

About Carli Sapir

Carli is a Founding Partner of Amboy Street Ventures and leads the Investment Team. She is also the Founder of the Female Founded Club (FFC), a global platform that introduces VC investors to high-quality female founded startups. Carli has an affinity for startups in the Sexual Health & Women’s Health Technology (SH&WHT) landscape due to personal health experiences. While running the FFC, she recognized that the lack of venture capital flowing to the SH&WHT market is stunting the growth of startups that tackle significant health problems for all genders. Carli founded Amboy Street Ventures to initiate a shift in the funding landscape that, until now, dictated the innovation in the SH&WHT market. Carli has a background in Private Equity and Engineering.

These Patented Undies Let More People Say Yes to Oral Sex

Many of the most impactful products in the sextech space have grown up in direct response to an unmet need. As we learn on this episode of Busine$$ of the V, Melanie Cristol brainstormed her unique patented underwear technology because she wanted to enable more people to say “yes” to oral sex. You’ll learn how and why the CEO & Founder of Lorals stepped out of a successful partner-track legal career in order to launch an international venture that promotes not only more oral sex but more orgasms, sensual fun and exploration of all kinds.

 

This episode also features big news: While Lorals has been growing exponentially based on the comfort and utility of its underwear alone, a whole new horizon will be opening up as the result of impending FDA approval. In addition to encouraging great sex, Lorals will also at last be able to promote safer sex. Rigorous design and testing make this product (which is available in a range of styles and sizes) a highly effective barrier to STIs and invitation to increased intimacy. You’ll be fascinated to hear about Melanie’s journey, her experiences securing federal approval and lessons learned about the world of venture capital.

 

So say hello to a smart, sexy, innovative product in a fast-growing niche market – and say goodbye to the old dental dam solution. With women three times more likely to orgasm through oral sex as compared with intercourse, the target market is clearly there! Click here to learn more about Lorals and check out their blog, Lorotica.

 

You can subscribe or listen to previous episodes of the Busine$$ of the V podcast by clicking here.

About Melanie Cristol

Melanie Cristol is the Founder & CEO of Lorals, the new standard for oral sexual wellness. As inventor and CEO of Lorals, Melanie holds four patents, has been nominated by XBIZ as Entrepreneur of the Year and has been featured in the NYTimes, Fast Company, and Cosmopolitan. Melanie has also been a featured speaker at SXSW, Lesbians Who Tech, the Brooklyn Sex Expo, and at colleges and universities across the country. Prior to creating Lorals, Melanie studied Sociology at Columbia University and received her JD from Columbia Law School. She worked as a healthcare and consumer products attorney and was part of the legal team that secured gay marriage rights for the western United States. Melanie also fought for LGBTQ rights in California and Ohio as a field organizer with the National LGBTQ Task Force.

 

Understanding Inequities in Women’s Healthcare Research

This episode highlights inequities in clinical research due to a lack of both diversity and nuance within the industry. To understand the “why” behind this persistent problem, Dr. Dweck and Rachel welcome Dr. Ru-fong Joanne Cheng, Senior Medical Director in charge of women’s health projects in the Office of the Chief Medical Officer at Johnson & Johnson. It’s an overwhelmingly tall order, but this conversation breaks down many of the stubborn barriers to inclusive medicine one by one.

You’ll learn about the $100 million dollar commitment that J&J has made to correcting inequities in women’s health care over the next five years. Dr. Cheng and her team are sponsoring research that is taking a cutting-edge prism to everything from the astronomical (and disparate) rates of death in childbirth among Black women in the U.S. to the FDA’s acknowledgement that clinical research must incorporate and reflect the reality of gender variability. Topics covered also include research processes that Dr. Cheng believes warrant reconsideration, strategies for harnessing data-driven insights, key factors impacting access and quality of care among different female demographics and how a physician in private practice might go about pursuing alternative careers in the medical space, including within industry.

The bottom-line focus is all about diversity – diversity of study subjects, diversity among clinical researchers. Dr. Cheng contextualizes gender, racism and implicit bias –  and how acknowledging variability is elemental to determining the course, accessibility and equity of ongoing medical research that so deeply impacts the ability of women to thrive now and into the future.

You can subscribe or listen to previous episodes of the Busine$$ of the V podcast by clicking here.

About Dr. Ru-fong Joanne Cheng

Dr. Cheng was inspired at a young age to make a difference in the world, which led her to become a physician in Obstetrics and Gynecology. While working in academic medicine, she discovered clinical research, which provides an opportunity to make a difference on a larger scale. For the past 12 years, she has worked in the pharmaceutical industry in clinical development for drugs and medical devices, taking positions of increasing leadership. In her roles, she blends science and medicine with the business of pharma and delivers treatments to patients with unmet needs. She is energized by the variety of work and leading cross-functional teams across different therapeutic. She has experience across all phases of drug development, regulatory submissions and approvals with global health authorities, post-marketing activities and lifecycle management.

FURTHER RESOURCES:

Website: J&J Office of the Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Cheng @LinkedIn

Unbound Breaks Down the Barriers of Discussing Women’s Sexual Wellness

This episode highlights the huge progress we’re seeing (at long last!) in the sextech industry. Dr. Dweck and Rachel invite their guest Polly Rodriguez to share the journey of Unbound, the sexual wellness company she initially founded to fill a market gap – only to discover its super-power: Breaking open the silence around women’s sexual health and wellness.

Diagnosed at 21 years old with Stage 3 colorectal cancer, Polly was thrown into premature menopause, with all its ancillary challenges. She was no more willing to accept being “put sexually out to pasture” than she was willing to succumb to cancer. “When you go through something like a cancer diagnosis, you feel like you have no connection with your body. I felt like I wanted to reclaim it,” says Polly. And thus Unbound was conceived as a direct-to-customer platform that makes body safe vibrators, lubricants and accessories.

The company’s product-level focus is on supporting women who – for whatever reason – want to explore sex-related products like lubricant and vibrators. It has been a very successful entrepreneurial venture of which Polly is rightfully proud, but she is just as proud of her larger contribution to advancing sex education and sextech as an industry deserving of a voice in the marketplace.

You’ll learn about The Women of Sextech, a group Polly helped found in an effort to break barriers to advertising and ensure equal access to capital funding and social media platforms.  It’s exciting to explore yet one more example of sextech leaders coming together, working collaboratively and changing business as usual in “very fem, non-binary ways.” As a bonus, Dr. Dweck and Rachel weigh in with information about the status of sex education nationally, marketplace trends in sextech and femtech advertising as well as the causes of and new approaches to early and premature menopause.

You can subscribe or listen to previous episodes of the Busine$$ of the V podcast by clicking here.

The Center for Intimacy Justice is Tackling Facebook’s Censorship of Health Ads

This episode of the Busine$$ of the V features Jackie Rotman, CEO and founder of the Center for Intimacy Justice (CIJ), a social change organization committed to equity and wellbeing in people’s intimate lives. You’ll learn about how CIJ is helping to rewrite the rules in tech companies' ad policies to allow ads for female sexual health and wellness – which are systematically censored today. She also shares the story of her journey to advocacy in the “sextech” space and the results of a compelling new study.

Among other things, CIJ's recent study reveals that 100% of 60 companies with a female sexual wellness focus were denied the right to advertise on Facebook. Jackie explains how such discrimination impacts educators and economics alike, a subject about which both Dr. Dweck and Rachel have thoughts. The conversation also highlights long-standing assumptions about – and the more recent medicalization of – women’s sexual wellness and levels of sexual satisfaction.

 

You’ll hear an interesting anecdote about the censorship Dr. Dweck herself experienced when she was promoting her book, "V is for Vagina: Your A to Z Guide to Periods, Piercings, Pleasures, and so much more," due to its plain-spoken title and language. Activists like Jackie have been critical to opening up discussion and bringing pressure to bear around sexual intimacy justice and the myriad related issues CIJ plans to take on. Visit this link if you’d like to request a copy of CIJ’s fascinating report, donate or find out more about their work.

You can subscribe or listen to previous episodes of the Busine$$ of the V podcast by clicking here.

Womaness Creates Modern Menopause Products

On this episode of the Busine$$ of the V, hosts Dr. Dweck and Rachel ramp up a conversation that has burst forth in recent years. No more is menopause a whispered word, suitable only for the gynecologist’s office. With some 20 percent of women in the U.S. at some stage of menopause — many of them in the workforce — it was time to break the silence, which is just what Michelle Jacobs and Sally Mueller, the co-founders of Womaness, have done.

As CEO and COO respectively, Sally and Michelle are all about taking the “pause” out of menopause. Their Womaness platform was developed specifically to provide modern, innovative products, essential information and unlimited inspiration to women transitioning through this stage. The overarching goal is to spark a radiant, dynamic outlook based on treatment options and education. They call it “menopositivity.”

Womaness’ complement of products zeroes in on a range of menopausal issues because every woman’s journey is different. They believe symptoms like hot flashes, brain fog, fine lines, vaginal dryness, low libido, and bladder leaks should not slow anyone down. Their products are carefully vetted, backed by clinical data and made of clean ingredients. The centerpiece of this vision is the role that community has to play. They want Womaness to be a “first line of defense” for women in search of science-based, cutting-age information. Their platform is built not just to sell products (which are also available online and at a variety of retail outlets, like GNC and Target), but also to advance discussion through Facebook meetups, a newsletter, social media posts and Q&A’s hosted by trusted medical authorities.

It’s been a major leap for Sally and Michelle, whose careers were previously within traditional corporate environments. Hear all about their wild entrepreneurial ride and the in-the-trenches camaraderie that has kept their team going strong. You can learn more about their products and take their W Quiz here.

 

You can also subscribe and/or listen to previous episodes of the Busine$$ of the V podcast by clicking here.

Pulse Transforms Personal Intimate Wellness Into A Warm & Luxurious Experience

It’s not often that we associate menopause-related products with high-end retail outlets like Nordstrom’s and Bloomingdale’s but that’s the feat achieved by Amy Buckalter, the visionary featured on this episode of the Busine$$ of the V. Hosts Dr. Dweck and Rachel get the full rundown on her burgeoning company Pulse, which has developed a bespoke dispenser for lubricants that is drawing fans well beyond its originally intended target audience.

“Gone are the days of cheap plastic tubes that look like they belong in the drugstore,” says Amy, who is founder and CEO of the Seattle-based business. “(Lubricants today) are in shapes, sizes, colors and materials that really feel like a beauty product.”

Pulse is revolutionizing the consumer experience in personal care and beauty with an innovative, hygienic new dispensing technology for liquid formulations including oils, lotions, creams, and gels. Using recyclable Pulse Pods, it’s an easy, touchless dispenser that is not only esthetically pleasing but adaptable to uses beyond the bedroom. Think convenient, mess-free, touchless access to your favorite formulations, whether in the kitchen, bathroom or nursery.

Best of all, Pulse products are designed with only premium ingredients – no harsh chemicals or irritating fillers. You’ll learn about how Amy has lofted her personal health care product squarely into the beauty and self-care space, and what lies ahead for Pulse’s bounds-breaking business model!

You can subscribe or listen to previous episodes of the Busine$$ of the V podcast by clicking here.

This is How Aspira Women’s Health is Detecting the Risk of Ovarian Cancer Early

With its lack of early diagnostics and greater than 50% mortality rate, ovarian cancer impacts enormous costs to women and society as a whole. But there is light at the end of the tunnel, thanks to Valerie Palmieri, a force to be reckoned with and the featured guest on this episode of Busine$$ of the V. As President and CEO at Aspira Women’s Health, she is not only overseeing the development of blood-based solutions that will improve gynecologic health outcomes, she is also fighting mightily to ensure that these non-invasive blood based risk assessment tools are available to women across the socio-economic spectrum.

Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common gender-specific cancer and, says Valerie, the most grueling of them all. But Aspira’s FDA-cleared bio-informatics products are able to detect with a high level of accuracy,  the risk for malignancy in pelvic masses – a breakthrough compared with the limited ovarian cancer diagnostics available to date. The company has also recently launched Aspira GenetiXSM testing, which offers both targeted and comprehensive genetic testing options. The trick is to predict personalized risk of this evasive cancer as early as possible.

Valerie shares her journey both personally, as a scientist and executive in the startup diagnostic space, and as a vigorous advocate for equal access to ovarian cancer diagnostics. A formidable leader, she is driving awareness for Aspira, building a niche for the company within the life sciences sector and fighting to save lives (along with enormous private and governmental insurance expense). She offers advice for up-and-coming life sciences entrepreneurs and a glimpse of a future in which genetic markers will play a big role in ensuring women’s health. As Rachel notes after reviewing Aspira’s study results: “The numbers are life-changing!”

Enjoy this hopeful conversation with a stand-out femtech pioneer! Visit https://businessofthev.com for more episodes, show notes and more.