November 6, 2024 • 57 mins
Sequel, the femcare company behind The Spiral Tampon, is the first company in 80 years (!) to redesign the tampon. Sequel was founded by Stanford graduates and athletes, and I’m joined by co-founder and CMO Amanda Calabrese on this week’s episode of If I’m Honest with Julia Landauer. We discuss how personal experiences with menstruation in sports led Amanda and her co-founder Greta Meyer to research other people’s relationship with tampons for a product design class at Stanford. With grants secured immediately after college to research and develop their vision, they identified an issue with traditional tampon shapes and re-engineered the design. As a woman co-founder for a women-focused product seeking venture capital funding, which is largely male-dominated, Amanda learned the importance of storytelling and personal branding as a way to connect with people. We also discuss Sequel’s incredible early partnerships with Stanford Athletics, Athleta, USL Super League, and Athletes Unlimited and their future athlete roster.
Learn more about Sequel at https://www.trysequel.com/
Follow Sequel on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trysequel and TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@trysequel
You can follow Amanda Calabrese at https://www.instagram.com/apcalabrese/
Learn more about Julia Landauer at https://julialandauer.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of If
I'm Honest with Julia Landauer. This week's guest is the
incredibly cool, incredibly smart, incredibly accomplished Amanda Calabreeze. Now, I'm
gonna preface this by saying that we have a lot
of synergies. We are both former competitive athletes, we both
went to Stanford, we both are operating in male dominated fields,
(00:26):
and we both care deeply about women's hygiene and femcare products,
which is how Amanda became the CMO and co founder
of Seql, a women's health company that's focused on product
innovation addressing unmet needs of women. The company's first product,
a redesign of the tampon as the Sequel Spiral tampon
is FDA approved as a medical device and features a
proprietary spiral design that is engineered to be more fluid
(00:49):
mechanically efficient, meaning it is designed to absorb more evenly
and not leak before it's full, which if you've used tampons,
you know that that is an incredibly important feature, something
that doesn't always work out in our favor and causes
a lot of stress. Amanda was named to the twenty
twenty three Forbes thirty Under thirty List. She represented the
United States and the sport of surf life saving. She's
(01:12):
a nine time national champion and has the most wins
in her event, which is beach Flags for any person,
male or female, in the history of life saving sport
in the US. What a badass. When not working on
SQL or competing, Amanda is searching for her next adrenaline rush, surfing, swimming,
and skiing in San Francisco, where she lives. I adored
(01:32):
this conversation. I was so happy to be introduced to Amanda.
I see so many similarities between her and myself. I
really admire the mission driven nature of the products that
she and her co founder have been creating, and as
someone who is so big on women's empowerment, so much
of that is just getting us to a level playing
(01:53):
field and trying to alleviate some of the stress that's
associated with some of the things that women uniquely have
to deal with. And we talk about everything from starting
up the company, how they got the idea, the R
and D, how they are partnering and expanding their time
at the Paris Olympics, recent partnerships they've had, what they're
looking to for the future. We get into what it's
(02:15):
like to be a woman seeking VC funding. We talk
about the importance and the critical nature of storytelling, how
that plays throughout our lives, and it's just so much fun.
So I really hope that you enjoy this conversation with
Amanda Calabreez, who is the CMO and co founder of SQL. Amanda,
thank you so much for joining me on. If I'm
honest with Julia Landauer, I.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Am so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Oh, of course, now we have a lot of synergies, right.
We both were competitive athletes, both went to Stanford, Both
cared deeply about women's health and feminine care and hygiene,
and so it was just a matter of time before
our paths met, I think. And it's just so cool
to see what you have done and for some addition
(03:00):
context for our listeners. For a long time, I have
said that my dream sponsor would have been a tampon
company because a number of things. One I really care
about destigmatizing and getting rid of the taboo and just
normalizing like women's health and menstruation and everything like that.
I also thought it would be so audacious to put
a big tampon on the side of a race car. Like,
(03:21):
just from a marketing perspective, it seems cool. NASCAR has
a almost forty percent female fan base, so just kind
of like it seemed like it would be super cool,
and like I pitched it. I was able for a
few years period to pitch some smaller companies, some global companies.
It didn't stick, but that's okay. I think that the
work you're doing is so cool. So anyway, I personally
was really interested in talking with you. I think this
(03:43):
is really exciting. And I think one thing that I
read some in some press that you had was that
you guys wanted to focus on revitalizing a quote unquote
sleepy industry, which is kind of what I want to
jump into first. So, like, how did you come up
(04:04):
with the idea to shake up the sleepy industry? How
did you come up with the idea of redeveloping a tampon?
And can you talk about this SEQL shape and what
makes it different?
Speaker 3 (04:16):
So we actually started with our own experiences, right, I mean,
similar to your athletic career racing, and I'm sure you've
had your fair share of having your period having to
go out for a race.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
My co founder and I had these same.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Experiences in our athletic careers, right, So I was wearing
a red, white and blue bikini going out and racing
all over the world. I competed for the US Life
Saving Team for almost ten years. My co founder played
you on the cross at Stanford wearing a white home
team skirt, and the idea FIRSTQL came from those moments.
And for gretit was you know, her teammates yelling can
(04:54):
you check me?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Like can you? Can?
Speaker 3 (04:55):
You look at my skirt and you're like supposed to
be focusing on the game you're playing, but actually you're
focusing on whether you have a red stain. And for
me it was like, I'm totally I'm competing against some of.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
The best people in my sport in the world.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
I'm lining up at the beach and instead of being like, Okay,
what's my race plan? What am I doing entering the ocean?
Where am I going? What are the conditions looking like,
I'm like, Okay, what is my tampon doing? How long
have I been wearing it? Do I trust it to
hold up in this race? And that's the checklist I'm
going through it's not my race plan. And when Greta
(05:31):
and I came together and realized that we had these
shared experiences, we knew that we also had the expertise
from our time at Stanford to think about a better solution,
and so it really started with our own experiences as
high level athletes. Now we were in the perfect environment
(05:54):
to really see if we could make a difference, and
we started more broadly with the period space and period
category right talking to people about what they were using.
We're using tampons, pads, menstrual cups, munstrual discs were really
popular when we were starting the company, and we recognized
(06:14):
everyone we were speaking.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
To, or most people that we were speaking to, we're
using tampons.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
And that was because we were speaking to a lot
of very active women, a lot of people that were
on our sports teams.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Or people that we exercised with. And so we landed on.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Re engineering or at that point, attempting to re engineer
tampon because that's what most of the people we spoke
to were using. And that's also seventy percent of us
women report tampons is their product of choice, So that's
where we could have the biggest impact. In the market,
everybody was saying the same thing. My tampon leaks far
(06:51):
before it's full. It's unreliable, it's uncomfortable. I pull it out,
there's a red line down the side. The whole rest
of the product is there. I'm like, are you even
doing your job right? And so we really wanted to
focus on that, that failure, right, the product failure that
causes the distraction whether the products could a fail or not.
(07:13):
And so we I mean, we discovered that vertical channels
that are present on almost all of the tampons in
the market are funneling the fluid away from the absorbent core,
causing it to not absorb evenly and then in turn
causing the product to potentially leak before it is full.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
And so what.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
We ideated at the D School at Stanford and what
we ultimately ended up developing is a helical spiral that
goes around the outside of the tampon. This helps the
tampon absorb more evenly in stages and to completion without
failing before it is full. And again it helps prevent
(07:55):
that premature leakage. And so the goal is to have
the tampon that is more relying liable, and the goal
is to have a product that we all can wear,
whether we're in sports, competing at the top of our
game or just going to yoga or walking down the street,
having something that we can actually depend on in trust.
And so it's been five years of developing that product
(08:17):
since since we started at Stanford, But I mean, I
couldn't be more proud to actually have the product out
in the world today. It's it's really cool to go
from like, you know, dorm room sketch to Okay, this
is actually real, this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I feel like that's like the like Stanford vibe, like
Silicon Valley vibe of like the dream of that ideation
to actual product, which I want to get to in
a little bit. But I also just want to take
a second to give some context for our listeners who
have not used Tampa or don't have a period right,
because like, yeah, I think what you talked about about
the distractions that you then have to deal with when
(08:52):
you should be focusing on whatever task is at hand,
and this spans like competitive athletes, but also like you know,
you're not supposed to keep a tampon in for more
than eight hours for risk of bacteria development and all that,
and so you know, if you're lucky enough to sleep
more than eight hours or don't have to do that,
Like you have to think about it as it relates
to when you're sleeping, or do you have to set
on early, or you know, if you have to fly
(09:14):
when you have your period, Like so many different factors
can affect the flow and the heaviness and it could change.
And if you're in a foreign environment or if you're
like in a different climate or tropic, like, it can
impact your body. And so there are just so many
times where you then have to think about that. And
it's partially because there's still taboo in people for whatever reason,
(09:35):
shame women about period stuff, and there's negative connotations with it,
but it's also a public health thing, Like it's not
sanitary if you're if anyone from any type part of
your body is bleeding around other people, right Like, that's
so it's it's I don't mean that in a negative way.
It's just like, you know, there's a reason people have
to put on gloves if they cut themselves when they're chefs,
right Like, you're not supposed to have that, you know,
(09:57):
permeate other things so it's just a constant going on
in the background, and so it can it's really it
can be really stressful, and especially for like teenagers or
people just starting like it's it's so different. So the
work that you're doing is incredible. So jumping into the
time at Stanford. So for those who don't know, the
D School, which it stands for Design School, is a
(10:19):
really innovative, creative resource rich part of the school which
different majors can have classes in their different lectures. I
clearly remember one class that I didn't take. What I
read about I just didn't work with my schedule. It
was called fail Faster, and the concept was how you
know when you're ideating, when you're problem solving, you want
to not be super married to one single idea, and
(10:43):
it's about kind of having an idea, testing it, analyzing it,
learning from it, adapting, evolving, changing your approach. Did you
do a lot of that as you were coming up
with the design and like what did that look like?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, I mean so much of it is iterating.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
I think the thing that's different for us is that
we are a medical device, and so in the way
that you can test different iterations of a software product
or landing pages or things like that. We were very
limited in what we could actually do from a physical
prototyping perspective because we are regulated by the FDA and
(11:23):
we are a medical device.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
We are a product that goes into somebody's body.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Now, what we can do is talk about the needs
with our users. Right, we can go and have endless
conversations and collect as much user insight as we possibly can.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Right, talk to people about.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
The period routines, their period habits, what is something that
is distracting you when you're preparing for your day, for
your game, whatever you're doing. And so we spend a
lot of time in what the d School calls the
need finding phase, so that we can really understand You
don't want to jump into a solution, right, I think
very often we jump to conclusions, we make assumptions, and
(12:08):
then we build a solution that is based on a
wobbly tower of assumptions and opinions.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And we want to make sure that any solution that
we arrive at is.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Grounded in the true needs of the users that we
want to solve a problem for.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
And so we spent a lot of.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Time on the need finding phase to make sure that
we were actually solving a problem that we had, because
if people were happy with their period products, then there
would be no reason for us to innovate in the category.
If people are happy with the performance of their tampons,
then we wouldn't need a better tampon.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
But that wasn't the case.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And then also,
I guess when you're going through that process, how do
you know when you have identified enough of a problem,
Like how many people do you need to speak to?
How many perspectives do you need to have before you're like,
all right, this clearly has legs, let's go with it.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I mean, when you start hearing it's about pattern recognition, right,
when you start hearing the same things over and over again,
that's when you know that you have found something. And
we kind of like we have different words for those,
like we're that's when you know you have a finding, right,
and when that finding leads to something that you can
(13:27):
understand about this particular user or customer or population, that's
when you've developed an insight. And so I think a
line that I used before that I think is so
was so resonant with us and our users and ultimately
resulted in this insight was finding that we had was
(13:49):
I pull out my tampon, there's a red line down
the side, and the whole rest of the product is there.
And we heard that over and over and over again
by asking question like interesting questions about periods, like, you know,
take me through your experience with your tampon, Take me
through your routine, walk me through step by step. So
you put the tampon in, how long are you wearing
(14:10):
it for? Your taking it out? What are you noticing
when you take it out? There's a red line down
the side. Okay, that's really interesting. And we collect all
of these findings that we have, we keep hearing this
over and over again, and the insight from that is
that the reason, like the tampons are failing before they're
full because there's a line down the side, right, And
(14:32):
that's really interesting. Well, why are tampons leaking before they're
full and causing this pretty much more product failure and
then in turn causing distraction. Oh, it's because there's these
vertical the vertical channels are causing this red line down
the side.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Okay, that's the problem.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Is that there are this red line down the side
there are these vertical channels down the side, and that
leads us to our solution that, Okay, how do we
disrupt the vertical channels. How do we create something that
is different from the vertical channels. And that's kind of
like how you get like from like a kind of
a building block like block by block by block.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
That's how you get to your solution.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Instead of saying, Okay, everybody hates tampons, we should just
design a new type of period product, right, Like, maybe
that's somewhere we would have gone, but we spoke to
our users and they were very regimented in their period routines,
and we didn't want to disrupt that. We didn't want
to say, oh, you don't like your tampon, here's some
(15:37):
new product that we invented that you're gonna have to
learn how to use and you're gonna have to trust
us that it's going to work.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
And you've never seen it before. We had to educate
you on it. Right.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
We actually just noticed that people were people were choosing
tampons because they were convenient, because they allowed them to
move their bodies, exercise, go swimming, all of these things.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
It was very very liberating product.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
At the same time, it's still had its constraints, and
so how do we look at the constraints of the
product where the product may be lacking and innovate there
so that we can impact.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
A huge market and a large amount of users.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Right, And am I correct that a very large percentage
of feminine care users use the same type of product
that they were taught to when they first got their period,
like with their mom.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, I mean it's it is a category that is
so influenced by mom, or by your big sister.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Or even from a sports.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Like so many athletes talk about getting their first period
when they're traveling with their team and it's like the
older girl on the swim team or the team captain
on your lacrosse team is giving you a tampon and
explaining to you how to.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Put it in. So it's somebody it's passed down.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
It is it is knowledge that has passed down from
somebody in your life that you trust.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
M H. And that like carries such a psychological weight
with it. I don't mean that in a negative way,
but just like you're you know, as you're going through
this huge change in your body, like all of the
chemicals in your body are changing when you're going through
puberty and you're you know, it's a fairly traumatic thing
to experience for the first little while. I mean, it's
so different and like the comfort that comes with the
(17:30):
initial like technique that you used. So I totally get that.
So did you pretty much know by the time you
graduated or before you graduated, that you were going to
pursue this entrepreneurial journey of trying to make this this
idea come to life.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
I think we didn't know how far we could take it.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Right, We had raised quite a bit of grant funding
while we were at Stanford, and that was it's such
a benefit of being added an institution like it is, right,
and also we were working on this project that a
lot of people saw merit and they saw the ability
for impact in a category that hasn't seen a ton
(18:13):
of innovation for a population that has can placent for decades.
So we went into the summer after graduation with grant funding.
But I think we didn't know, you know, was this
a fundable business. Were we going to be able to
raise the capital that we needed to invest in the
R and D? And so the goal for the summer
(18:35):
after graduation for Greta and myself was to go out
and figure out if this was a fundable business. And
so we use the grant funding that we had, the
advisors that we had to put ourselves in the best position,
whether that be setting up R and D, doing initial research,
(18:55):
interviewing the candidates to do the R and D, to
work like institutions and places that we could work with,
putting ourselves in the best position to then bring in
funding to kickstart a lot of the R and D.
And we were able to get a term sheet and
(19:17):
an offer for investment in the summer after graduation, and
not to us.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
That to us was the indication that people not.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Only believed in the product and the potential for the product,
but they believed in us. And that's so much of
early stage startups is like do I believe is the
market big enough? Is this a problem that needs to
be solved, and are these the right people to solve
this problem? And so the ability for us to get
an offer for investment a few months after graduating really
(19:49):
kicked off our first fundraise, which we did from friends
and family and from some smaller vcs in Silicon Valley
and Stanford Associated vcs and that allowed us to invest
in R and D y early on.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
That's amazing. Yeah, because the question I was going to
ask is like, how do you determine whether or not
it's a fundable initiative? And obviously getting a term sheet
is a very clear indication. But is that something that you, like,
were actively pitching. And I have never attempted to pitch.
I haven't had anything that is VC fundable, so I
don't know the exact process. I understand it on a
conceptual level, but like, is that something that you guys
(20:27):
actively went out and pitched or did it kind of
come to you through the initial research and you know,
initial funds grants that you were utilizing.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
We were we were going on and pitching. We had
put together a pitch check, we were pitching you know,
friends and family, angel investors, looking for introductions from people
that we met through Stanford, people that we met through
our past like work experiences, and we were like pounding
the pavement, like getting in front of anybody that we
(20:58):
could telling any But I think so much of it
is being confident in what you're doing. So when somebody says, oh,
what are you doing this summer? What are you doing
after graduation. I am building a company where we are
re engineering the tampon.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
For the first time in eighty years.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And there is power and there is confidence in that statement,
and there's also a commitment in that statement, because people
want to fund and people want to fund a business
where there are people that are committed to what they
are doing, that believe in what they're doing, and they're
confident in what they're doing. And so I think something
that Greta and I always said to ourselves that first
(21:41):
summer is like, we're building a tampon. We are building
a tampon company, we are building a women's health company.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
And we would just like say it over and over.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Again because that was the like outward commitment and confidence
that we needed to have going into every room.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I love that, and I gave me goosebumps because you're
so right that it's like it's the self belief that,
especially when you've put so much time in like you
earn it right like and you like should have full
faith in yourself. Understand it's a tough landscape out there
and nothing comes easy, But that's really incredible. Did you
enjoy the pitching process, like the actual being in the
(22:19):
room and pitching the product and why it was worth
investing in.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I think that it can get exhausting.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
It's like very it's very tiring, like just to lap
after your lap after lap doing the pitching. That being said,
I love telling stories and I love using storytelling as
a way to connect with people. And I think that
when you tell your story, when you find a way
(22:50):
to tell your story that connects with people and you
can see it on their faces when you're telling.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Your story, the story of the business.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
I think that that there's like a little bit of
magic to that that I do enjoy, and I think
that it is rewarding when you see residents in a room, right.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, completely, and like there are so many again, so
many synergies between us, because I was going to say
that with my you know, sponsorship pitching, which largely was
not successful over the course of my ten years, because
just you get so many more no's than yes. Is
totally the creativity involved in telling that story and to
(23:35):
your point, that storytelling and I love how you just said,
like the magic in that storytelling, it's it's really addicting
in a way, like it's so cool to know that
you have that impact. So I'm really glad that you
got to experience that as well.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, and I think so much of that, so much
of that learning is so much of it you're learning
on the fly, right you're doing this for the first time.
You're like, I'm trying to figure this out. But it
was really cool for me to feel like a lot
of the things that I the things that I was doing,
actually were rooted in experiences that I had had as
(24:13):
an athlete, and you know, also pitching myself for sponsorship
opportunities and pitching I worked in hospitality and I was
I didn't I haven't had a very.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Formal work experience in my life.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I worked as a lifeguard, I worked as a surf instructor.
Where I grew up, I had a surf lesson swim
lesson business, and so much of having my own business
was that was centered on the services that I was offering.
Was pitching myself to people because they were paying for
a service that I was providing. So my brand, my
(24:53):
personal brand, and the way that I would tell my
story was inextricably tied to the services that I was
pitching as my business. In the same way that the
personal brand that I had built for myself in the
context of my sport. That's a story to tell as well.
(25:13):
And so you kind of you're nervous and I'm doing
this for the first time. I have no idea what
I'm doing. But then you get in the room and
you start telling the story of the business and yourself
in the context of the business and what you're trying
to build.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
And a lot of those.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Learnings from my days having my search LUs in business
and my SI lesson business, they were coming back and
I was like, I have done this before, but in
a different form or a different outcome, right, Like, it's
the same process, it's a similar these are similar lessons,
and like I can take the experiences that I've had,
(25:48):
albeit not very standard work experiences. I can be effective
in this room even though I haven't had the fancies,
internships or the most common work experience.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yeah. No, totally. And I think that that ethos is
really relevant to kind of most people because people have
to kind of pitch themselves essentially, whether it's a job interview,
if it's data whatever it is, like when you are
trying to build that relationship your storytelling, and so I
think that concept of leaning into all your past experiences
(26:23):
and rooting what it is you're trying to get across
in those personal stories and personal experiences is some of
the most impactful ways to do that. So I think
that's really cool. We're going to take a quick break
and then we're going to be right back with Amanda
and if I'm honest as Julia Landauer, we are back
(26:46):
on If I'm honest with Julia landa Er with Amanda Calbreys,
who's the co founder of seql. Naming something, naming a product,
naming a service, a company name is monumental. And my
understanding is that Sequel is the current name, but it
was not the original name. Can you talk a little
bit about how you came to the original name and
(27:06):
how you decided that it was time to change it.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
We started out with a very funny naming history. Are
so I talked about I think I talked about this
as a class project, right, So it started at Stanford
of the class project. The original presentation had the name
Tampro on it and it was like, okay, professional Tampon's
(27:31):
Tampro like he and I think that was very like class.
It's a very class project name, like it's very it's
slightly juvenile like it, but it it was perfect for
that moment in time, and I think it's important to
appreciate like where you were in that moment in time
and what we called the class project. But we needed
(27:54):
to bring ourselves into a moment any space where we
had something that reflected the gravity and the expanse of
what we wanted to build, and that was we want
we are building, and we want to build a company
that is introducing women's health products that have never been
(28:19):
available because we haven't invested in them, we haven't innovated
on them, and we want to create products that deserve better,
right like they've always deserved better. We've been complacent about them,
we've ignored them. These products deserved better. So that's where
sequel comes from.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Sequels. It's the tampon two point zero.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
It's the sequel that these forgotten products, particularly the tampon,
deserved and it's the next chapter of these women's health products.
So that that's where that comes from, and we feel
that that's a much more accurate representation of the world
that we want to build. Love to think about brand
(29:02):
as like a world building exercise, Like your.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Brand is a world. What is the world that you
want to build?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Well, we want to build a world where period products,
necessary products, essential products for women are not being forgotten
and they're brought into their next chapter.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
That's such a great and I think it emphasizes the
holistic nature of your products, which are so important, it's
so essential, so integral to the fiber of you know,
menstuating people's life that it carries the appropriate gravity, which
I think is really cool from a logistic standpoint. Is
(29:42):
it an early enough switch that you like didn't have
to do too much on the consumer facing side or.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's that's right.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
I mean, we went through so many iterations of like
what should our name be, how like what should we do?
How should we change it?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
But we were.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Still so early in R and D that by the
time we changed the name, it was it was easy
to do. I think we're very thankful that we did that.
Now that we're consumer facing and looking at the way
that we show up with certain partnerships and announcements, and like,
(30:19):
I think that it's it's very fun to have a
name that is very different from the category and have
it be a little like, you know, we all know
that the Tampon brand names that all sound similar, and
we expect those types of names to be a part
of this category. And I think it's really cool when
we see one of our partners putting out an announcement,
(30:42):
like we're announcing our partnership with SQL, and people are like,
what is that, I don't know, like and then reading
about it, understanding the very logical and.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I think cool reason why we are named the way
that we are. It's very fitting.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
That's so true. And I am going to come back
to kind of being a CpG company in a second,
but since you've been talking about partnerships, I do want
to discuss some of the very very cool partnerships that
you have had. So first, about a month ago, you
announced a partnership with Stanford Athletics, which is the first
of its kind, and so can one as a Stanford
(31:20):
grad also, I just think that's really cool. It's so
fun to see the progress and the reinvestment back in
students that are really making or former students who are
really making a change in the world. So can you
talk about that.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
This Stanford partnership feels just like your goal to have
a Tampon on the side of your car.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Right.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
It feels like one of those partnerships that is groundbreaking
and I think will be the beginning of a shift
in what does it mean to have sponsors, what does
it mean to do something that nobody has done before.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
But we should have been doing this whole time.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
And I'm so thankful to the Stanford athletics team because
they we met and there was immediate alignment and it
wasn't like, oh no, how could we make this work.
I don't know this, We've never done anything like this before.
It was immediate alignment and it was we don't care
that nobody has done anything like this before. We don't
(32:25):
care that there's no playbook for this. We are happy
to be the first. We are happy to do something
that nobody else has done before. I make a statement,
and so we announced last month that we are the
Tampon of Stanford Athletics. It's the first collaboration between a
tam On company and an NCAA program ever, and obviously
(32:49):
we wouldn't have wanted to do it with anybody other
than Stanford Athletics. My co founder Greta played for the
Stanford lacrosse team, so it's amazing to hear her talk
about how meaningful it is that will now see sequel
tampons in the lacrosse locker room that she used to
(33:10):
be in.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
That is so cool. Congratulations, I mean, that is soak
and I'm so glad to hear that it was a
fairly streamlined process. Because of all the universities, you would
think that Stanford would be like innovative and open to
try things. And so it's really cool to kind of
not only I mean I know this and you know this,
but not only like talk to talk, but walk the
walk on all of the core values of the university.
(33:33):
And so talk to me about some of your other
partnerships because you had a presence at the Paris Olympics.
I just we want to hear all about it and
we want a fangirl over.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
We have had such a busy back half of twenty
twenty four. The summer, we announced that we are the
official tampon of the USL Super League, which is the
newest professional women's soccer.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
League in the US.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
We're really proud to partner with them. They're building something
that is incredible and that I mean we are partnering
them from day one, and we're so excited to see
them grow and grow with them.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
I mean, Stanford is a highlight of this year.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Because that is so against the grain and it's something
that nobody's done before. We did go to the Paris Olympics.
We were a part of the Athleta Power of She
activation in Paris. We sampled with them and Athleta is
an incredible brand.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
It's perfect brand alignment for us.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Athleta as the most beautiful workout sets that I can
wear to yoga, I can.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Wear them out and about.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
I can wear them casually, but they're also being worn
by Katie Ladeki and Simone Biles, who are two.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Of their athletes, and they're the goats.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
So it's it's a wonderful partnership for us because it
shows that.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
You can you can Simone Biles.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
And Katie Oldecki can wear the same athletic workout outfit
that you can wear to yoga or walking down the
street in the same way that you can be the
best athlete in the world, and you still need a
tampon that is reliable in the same way that I
need a tampon when I walk down the street that's
(35:31):
going to be.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Reliable for me.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
So I think that like the versatility of both our
product and athletics products for any type of woman is
really important and I love that alignment. What it was
a surreal experience to be at the Olympics. We also
had the opportunity to get some product out to some
(35:54):
of our favorite Team USA athletes prior to them being
a part of the Olympics, and we saw we saw
a couple Instagram posts from some of our favorite athletes
posting some of our merge and.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
So that was very cool.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
It was very very cool knowing that some of the
best athletes in the world, competing for the hardest arguably
the hardest Olympic team to make, are recognizing our product,
our brand like and showing it to their audiences.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
It was it was a dream. It was so so cool.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
And then we also just we just announced that we
are the official tampon of Athletes Unlimited, which is the
only professional acrosse and professional softball league in the US
for women, and they also have volleyball, they have basketball,
and they're really pioneers in women's professional sports leagues. They
(36:57):
have this like very interesting league and game structure that's
really exciting and like content oriented, action oriented, and like
really for the fans, so that fans can feel super
close to their bivorite players. Volleyball is one of the
fastest growing youth sports in the US, and they've really
(37:18):
made professional volleyball accessible for a lot of these young
fans and so perfect partner alignment there as well.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
That's incredible And something that I've picked up as we've
been talking, which I think is super admirable, is as
you're talking about your product that you're building, and that's
like first and foremost, but you talk about like the
importance of like every step of the ecosystem that you
are kind of serving, and I think that that's so
important and something that's overlooked a lot, and it's just
(37:48):
it's really like, kudos to you, and I applaud you
because I think that like the passion you clearly convey
for women's sports and women's well being and the team
dynamic and you know, being able to focus on the spoorart,
it's like it's so cool, like this is this feels perfect,
and so I just want to give that shout out
because I think it's really cool. Throwing it back real
(38:09):
quick before we take our next break with being a CpG.
And obviously there's so much that goes on behind the scenes,
and you've talked about some of the things like the
name or like doing research and R and D and
all that stuff. Well, were there any things that were
particularly unexpected on the like logistical back end, behind the
(38:29):
scenes side of starting a consumer package good company?
Speaker 3 (38:36):
I mean, everything is everything is unexpected and crazy all
the time.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
I mean, we spent five years in R and D
making this, and it's funny. You speak to like CBG
people and they're like, that's forever.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
And then you speak to medical device people because we
went through the FDA were a class to medical device,
were regulated by the FDA in the United States. You
speak to medical device people and they're like, you went
from notebook sketch to an FDA five ten K clearance
in four years, Like that's crazy, right, So it's all
about perspective, and so for us, it's like, you.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Know, you speak to CpG people and they're like, that's so.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Long, that's insane. And then the other perspective is that
that was really fast. But there's so many challenges when
you're building a physical product that you don't foresee when
you're starting, there's everything from building and developing the product,
getting a manufacturer that you trust and can rely on.
(39:40):
It's it's like making sure that the quality of your
product coming off the line is what you want it
to be. Then once you get through that, it's the
regulatory piece. When you get through that, it's the warehousing,
the fulfillment, the logistics, making sure that our customers are
getting their products. And then when the product gets to
the customer, are they happy with the product? What do
(40:02):
they think about the product? What's going to get them
to continue using our product? And then obviously there's the
whole marketing piece as well, which is like what is
the right audience for us to go after? How do
we and I think for us, like we have the
perspective that you know, women's sports isn't just about people
that play sports.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
It's not just.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
About like the people watching women's sports are not just
people that play sports. If if the only people that
watched the WNBA were people that played basketball, we wouldn't
be seeing the explosive growth in fandom that we're seeing
of that league today, right, And so we need to
think about our customers as not only.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
People that play sports, but people that watch sports.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
So there's that marketing component as well that we're working
through and testing and figuring out.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, And is it safe to say that, like you
were figuring it out as you go and learning as
you go.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
That's the nature of a startup, right, That's why we
get our hands dirty and we work on a small,
scrappy team on really interesting problems that we want to solve, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
And I think that's an important flag though, because I think,
you know, especially especially people who like aren't going to
an you know, an entrepreneurial focused university or not in
that regional area where so much of you know, startups
are born, this idea that you have to have a
clear idea of how you're going to get there, or
(41:29):
you know, or it's not worth it. Like, I think
it's so important to reiterate the message that many, many
people have the vision, have the idea, and just and
most importantly, I think, have the belief in themselves and
confidence in themselves that they will figure it out along
the way. I think there's a misconception that you need
to you know, you don't need a supply chain, you know,
(41:50):
manufacturing background to go into this physical product, you can
figure it out. So I think that's a really nice
example of you know, just that dive in head first,
believe that you'll figured out, ask questions around yourself with
good people, outsource when you need to.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Yeah, that's the biggest thing is like bringing I think
the biggest the biggest asset that a founding team or
a founder can have is knowing when to bring on
help and bringing on people that know more than you'll
ever know about a topic or a part of your business, right,
(42:30):
like bringing on somebody with so much experience that they
can help execute and that you as the founder, your
job is not to do everything. Your job is not
to be the best at everything. Your job is to
facilitate and create a space for the best people to
do their best work. That's the best way to be
a founder.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yeah, And that brings back the importance of the storytelling
component that you talked about earlier. Like the way that
you're going to bring in these really knowledgeable experience like
top ten to your talent people is by articulating the
vision and sharing the passion. And that's where I think,
like especially that that little GENIESI qua from a founder
(43:10):
is so important because you bring that magic to it
that then makes people want to get involved.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Totally, totally.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
I love it. Oh, I love it so much. We're
going to take one more break, but then we're going
to be back with Amanda Calbreys. We are back on
if I'm honest with Julia landau Er with our guest
Amanda Calbres from the sequel. So you talk about how
(43:39):
pretty early on after graduating you were able to get
out and start pitching for some VC funding, and it
has been widely reported, especially in the recent past, that
women founders receive a very small percentage of overall VC funding,
and we hope that that's changing. There's awareness now at least.
But can you talk little to the experience that you
(44:01):
personally had you and Greta had being female founders going
after VC funding.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Yeah, when we were when we were going out and
pitching for funding, we recognized that we were two young
women and we were pitching a product that was meant
for women, and so we had we had some hurdles
to overcome. But I do think that for us going
out and pitching, a lot of it was about against
(44:29):
storytelling and making sure that we were clearly communicating to
whoever our audience was on the other side of the pitch,
but they understood that this was a need that needed
to be solved, whether they could empathize with the problem
or whether they could sympathize with the problem, that this
was a this was a critical problem that needed to
(44:52):
be solved.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
And I think that what we did really.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Well was asking our audience to, you know, ask around
if they couldn't empathize and they can only sympathize with
the problem, ask your wife, your daughter, your female friends,
ask them what they think about this category, this market,
(45:17):
do some research and come back to us with any
questions that you have.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
And I think being open to that, being open to
investors wanting to do research with the people around them
that they care about the most. I think people feel
the most comfortable.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Taking risks on things and taking that some things when
they understand it, which is why like which is why
it's so hard to raise money for pampons or anything
in the women's health space, because if it doesn't if
you don't feel like it affects you and you don't
feel like you can relate to it, it's much more
difficult to take a risk on it so making sure
that we are telling the story in the way in
(45:52):
a way where people feel comfortable asking questions, they feel
comfortable engaging with us and comfortable engaging with the pep
in their lives to ask some really hard questions or
ask some maybe questions that they never thought they'd be
asking of their friends, of their partners. We need to
facilitate an environment and a conversation where they.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Can feel comfortable doing that.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
And so that means we need to be really confident
in our belief that this would be a huge business.
We need to be confident that this is a business
that needs to exist. This is a problem that needs
to be solved. But this is a company that were
the right people to do it. This is a company
being built by people that are exactly the.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Founders that should be doing it.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
And I think that's a huge founder product fit, especially
for CPGG, is a huge deal when pitching as well.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
Yeah, and you talking reminded me of I don't know
who said this. I cannot find the accreditation needed, but
a quote that privilege is invisible to those who have it,
and I feel like that is probably like an additional
hurdle that you have to deal with to your point,
as a female Letting co founded female product company Pitching too,
(47:05):
I would assume majority men like needing to have that
education process, which not every investor is going to want
to be educated like you hope that they do, but
like there's clearly like you should, I would assume that
it almost can make the process easier if you see
that willingness, and or I should say I shouldn't make
the process easier. Nothing about raising money is easy, but
(47:27):
like you know, makes it maybe smoother if you see
that there's that willingness to learn totally.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
And I have one of our one of our investors
is absolutely incredible. It's Mark Hershinson at Pair VC, and
I love this anecdote from when we were raising money.
She is a woman, and she obviously understood the need
(47:55):
that we were trying to solve very deeply, and in
trying to communicate that to some male investors, it was
more it was us and some male investors. She knew
that in order to get these male investors to understand
what we what the gravity of what we were trying
(48:15):
to solve, she had to put it in their terms.
And so she said, you know, some of you are
new parents. Some of you have, our parents have had children,
you've all been through the diaper phase. And she's like,
imagine you're running through the airport, you're changing planes, and
(48:36):
your child.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Of wearing diapers.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
What's the one thing, like you're in this kind of
like state of chaos, what is the one thing that
you need that diaper to do as you're trying to
execute something that absolutely must happen, high pressure, high stakes.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
They cannot leak And that was such a powerful use
of store.
Speaker 3 (49:00):
Are you telling to build mpathy with an audience, But
we'll never experience their tampa leaking. They'll never experience how
many US tampas, but they'll experience a diaper leaking while
you're changing planes, running through an airport with a child
in a lot of suitcases.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Yeah, Oh my goodness. This makes me like a little
angry because you may saying that example of diapers, It's
like that is such a similar product. I had never
I had never drawn the parallels there. And there has been,
to my understanding, quite a bit of innovation around diapers,
around materials, around sustainable stuff, Like that's a whole no
totalization with like not putting chemicals in your body on
(49:39):
your body whatever, and like there's so much iteration around that,
and yet a very similar product that affects roughly fifty
percent of the population has not been innovating, Like women
just keep getting screwed, Like, oh my goodness, So thank
you again for stepping up for the space, because yeah,
I haven't thought about it like that, and oh yeah,
(50:00):
but I'm glad that that story resonated because it does.
It's it's that would be terrible.
Speaker 3 (50:05):
Yeah, And for all the super dads in the room,
as they all are, they were like, of course, like,
of course, I'm like carrying my child and I don't
want the diaper to leap, like I've got to get
on the plane, and like and they knew like immediately
they resonated with that, right, So.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Yeah, no, that's that's a really to your point, great
example of storytelling, and I appreciate that on behalf of
all the women out there. I only have a couple
more questions for you before we get into our rapid
fire if you're honest, But what would you say so
far have been some of your proudest moments with SQL.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
We Oh, my god, proudest moments. I think everything I
think I think both my co founder and I we
would say that one of our proudest moments is watching
the first like at scale production line of our product,
(51:06):
like like spiral tampons, like coming off the line and
like seeing it and holding it for the first time
and being like, oh my god, this is real.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
I think that's one.
Speaker 3 (51:14):
I think another one is being in Paris this past
summer was so incredible for all of us, for the team,
like it just that was such a huge moment because
you're like, you know, you're in it's like twenty twenty
and you're trying to build this product and everybody's always talking.
(51:38):
Everybody's always talking about the next Olympics. When the Olympics
is happening, right, so it's like Tokyo twenty twenty, twenty
twenty one, and this whole conversation around the Olympics, and
although you guys going to the Olympics, you guys doing
anything from the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
We're like, no, we're not doing anything to the Tokyo Olympics.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
We like, you're still in R and D and two
four years later, three years later, be there in Paris.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
That was that was huge moment.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Oh, that's incredible. Yeah, and on a global stage. I mean,
like that is with like the definition of human excellence
and to be associated with that, like that's I'm really
glad that you guys got to go there.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
So what's next, What's next for you? What's next for SQL?
What are we going to manifest here? Today?
Speaker 3 (52:23):
We have some really exciting partnerships coming up, So.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
So excited for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Also, we're starting to build out our athlete rosters, so
we are finally I mean, this is such a dream
for me to be able to work with some of
the most amazing athletes in the world that want to
talk about periods and talk about what it's like to
perform on their period. We're building our athlete roster and
that's a big focus for twenty twenty five and I'm
so excited to start announcing some of the athletes that
(52:54):
we will be working with next year.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
That's incredible. Oh well, I am rooting for you. I
am so excited to follow along on that. And also
I have I have bought my sequel so the next
time that I need them, I will be.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
Trying them out and amazing.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
I'm really looking forward to it because it is such
a I don't know, it's a little like it's emotional
and it's like a comfort thing, and I think you
can get in your own head about it. So I'm
really excited totally to pivot to our final segment. I
can't believe all this time has already gone by, but
the rapid fire. If you're honest, what is your go
to quick and easy dinner?
Speaker 3 (53:30):
Oh, I am such a like a bunch of veggies
in a cast iron like on the stone rice, Like
I don't know, just like I feel like it's my
athlete days. Like if I'm like getting home tired after
a long day work, I'm like grilled chicken veggies on
the cast iron rice, like just reverting back to the
(53:51):
like grinding it out athlete days.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
And then I like sit down with my k meal
and I'm like, oh my god, this is literally like
I'm training again.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
But it's new tree and dense and it doesn't have but.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Non quick and easy.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Like I love making homemade pizza, like actually rolling out
dough with like letting it rise with the yeast and
like actually making that for my friends.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Like I actually think that's super easy, but it seems like.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
It's not so my husband Ben, and especially our friends here.
There are a few friends here where like we have
we have a wood burning oonie oven, and then our
friend has the gas powered Ouoni pizza oven and like
they like have so fun red sheets of different like
the chemical properties of the dough that they're making are
not chemical, but like the ingredient properties of the does
(54:37):
that they're making and like with sugar and oil and
wetness and yeast, and it's like, oh my goodness, yes,
like keep making pezza.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
No, we we're gonna have a pizza day.
Speaker 3 (54:47):
We're gonna fast and loose in my household, it's like
I don't even know where our measuring cups are and
like a little bit of yeast, a little bit of
water dough like or flour, oil, sugar, and then it
just comes together. And my friends are like my friends
have like my French friends have watched me cook and
they're like, okay, started.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
On behalf of Ben, because I can like, no, stop
not measuring your baking.
Speaker 3 (55:21):
My good friends is like a chef and has worked
in Michelin Star restaurants and is like he'll come over
and like be watching me cook and he'll just be
like you got it, you got it, like no worries,
you got this.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
Hey, if it tastes good and it's edible at the end,
that's all that matters. I don't cook very much. I'm
like the professional dishwasher in the house, so I can't
really contribute it to styles of Yeah, yeah, you know what,
we each serve a purpose. What musical artists are you
listening to a lot right now?
Speaker 3 (55:53):
Oh, I'm listening to travel Aroone like everyone else. I
feel like that's a like a just classic answer, But.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
I love it. She's on several of her songs are
on my rotation on Spotify. Ye the last. If you're honest,
what is something that you're grateful for right now?
Speaker 3 (56:12):
But I'm so grateful that I am two blocks from
the ocean right now. I'm so grateful to live in
a city and get to be close to the ocean
right now.
Speaker 2 (56:22):
I'm a surfer.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
I am an ocean person through and through, and just
to be able to jump in the water at the
end of a long day is something I think I'll
look back on later in life and be like, Wow,
you got to live.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
That close to the beach in your twenties. That's so cool.
Speaker 1 (56:40):
That is so cool and also very brave because it's
very cold water out there.
Speaker 2 (56:44):
It is cold.
Speaker 1 (56:45):
Yeah, Amanda, that's amazing. Where are some of the best
places for people to find you online and to find SQL.
Speaker 3 (56:53):
So at triseql is our Instagram and TikTok. You can
find me at ap Calibres on Instagram and then sometimes
I post on LinkedIn and sometimes I don't see goodbye
me there, but yeah Instagram to talk for SQL and myself.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
I will link all that in description and include the website. Amanda,
thank you so much. This was so cool to hear
your journey. I am so excited to now know you
and follow you on this journey because it's such impactful
work and making stand for proud for sure.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
So so thankful to be here to know you and
appreciate everything.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
Thank you everyone. That is our episode. I will be
sharing all this information on Amanda and SEQL and Greta,
her co founder, and if you like this episode, please
share it with someone who you think would enjoy it
as well. And as always, thank you for letting us
be honest with you. And I will see you in
two weeks
Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of If
I'm Honest with Julia Landauer. This week's guest is the
incredibly cool, incredibly smart, incredibly accomplished Amanda Calabreeze. Now, I'm
gonna preface this by saying that we have a lot
of synergies. We are both former competitive athletes, we both
went to Stanford, we both are operating in male dominated fields,
(00:26):
and we both care deeply about women's hygiene and femcare products,
which is how Amanda became the CMO and co founder
of Seql, a women's health company that's focused on product
innovation addressing unmet needs of women. The company's first product,
a redesign of the tampon as the Sequel Spiral tampon
is FDA approved as a medical device and features a
proprietary spiral design that is engineered to be more fluid
(00:49):
mechanically efficient, meaning it is designed to absorb more evenly
and not leak before it's full, which if you've used tampons,
you know that that is an incredibly important feature, something
that doesn't always work out in our favor and causes
a lot of stress. Amanda was named to the twenty
twenty three Forbes thirty Under thirty List. She represented the
United States and the sport of surf life saving. She's
(01:12):
a nine time national champion and has the most wins
in her event, which is beach Flags for any person,
male or female, in the history of life saving sport
in the US. What a badass. When not working on
SQL or competing, Amanda is searching for her next adrenaline rush, surfing, swimming,
and skiing in San Francisco, where she lives. I adored
(01:32):
this conversation. I was so happy to be introduced to Amanda.
I see so many similarities between her and myself. I
really admire the mission driven nature of the products that
she and her co founder have been creating, and as
someone who is so big on women's empowerment, so much
of that is just getting us to a level playing
(01:53):
field and trying to alleviate some of the stress that's
associated with some of the things that women uniquely have
to deal with. And we talk about everything from starting
up the company, how they got the idea, the R
and D, how they are partnering and expanding their time
at the Paris Olympics, recent partnerships they've had, what they're
looking to for the future. We get into what it's
(02:15):
like to be a woman seeking VC funding. We talk
about the importance and the critical nature of storytelling, how
that plays throughout our lives, and it's just so much fun.
So I really hope that you enjoy this conversation with
Amanda Calabreez, who is the CMO and co founder of SQL. Amanda,
thank you so much for joining me on. If I'm
honest with Julia Landauer, I.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Am so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Oh, of course, now we have a lot of synergies, right.
We both were competitive athletes, both went to Stanford, Both
cared deeply about women's health and feminine care and hygiene,
and so it was just a matter of time before
our paths met, I think. And it's just so cool
to see what you have done and for some addition
(03:00):
context for our listeners. For a long time, I have
said that my dream sponsor would have been a tampon
company because a number of things. One I really care
about destigmatizing and getting rid of the taboo and just
normalizing like women's health and menstruation and everything like that.
I also thought it would be so audacious to put
a big tampon on the side of a race car. Like,
(03:21):
just from a marketing perspective, it seems cool. NASCAR has
a almost forty percent female fan base, so just kind
of like it seemed like it would be super cool,
and like I pitched it. I was able for a
few years period to pitch some smaller companies, some global companies.
It didn't stick, but that's okay. I think that the
work you're doing is so cool. So anyway, I personally
was really interested in talking with you. I think this
(03:43):
is really exciting. And I think one thing that I
read some in some press that you had was that
you guys wanted to focus on revitalizing a quote unquote
sleepy industry, which is kind of what I want to
jump into first. So, like, how did you come up
(04:04):
with the idea to shake up the sleepy industry? How
did you come up with the idea of redeveloping a tampon?
And can you talk about this SEQL shape and what
makes it different?
Speaker 3 (04:16):
So we actually started with our own experiences, right, I mean,
similar to your athletic career racing, and I'm sure you've
had your fair share of having your period having to
go out for a race.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
My co founder and I had these same.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Experiences in our athletic careers, right, So I was wearing
a red, white and blue bikini going out and racing
all over the world. I competed for the US Life
Saving Team for almost ten years. My co founder played
you on the cross at Stanford wearing a white home
team skirt, and the idea FIRSTQL came from those moments.
And for gretit was you know, her teammates yelling can
(04:54):
you check me?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Like can you? Can?
Speaker 3 (04:55):
You look at my skirt and you're like supposed to
be focusing on the game you're playing, but actually you're
focusing on whether you have a red stain. And for
me it was like, I'm totally I'm competing against some of.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
The best people in my sport in the world.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
I'm lining up at the beach and instead of being like, Okay,
what's my race plan? What am I doing entering the ocean?
Where am I going? What are the conditions looking like,
I'm like, Okay, what is my tampon doing? How long
have I been wearing it? Do I trust it to
hold up in this race? And that's the checklist I'm
going through it's not my race plan. And when Greta
(05:31):
and I came together and realized that we had these
shared experiences, we knew that we also had the expertise
from our time at Stanford to think about a better solution,
and so it really started with our own experiences as
high level athletes. Now we were in the perfect environment
(05:54):
to really see if we could make a difference, and
we started more broadly with the period space and period
category right talking to people about what they were using.
We're using tampons, pads, menstrual cups, munstrual discs were really
popular when we were starting the company, and we recognized
(06:14):
everyone we were speaking.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
To, or most people that we were speaking to, we're
using tampons.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
And that was because we were speaking to a lot
of very active women, a lot of people that were
on our sports teams.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Or people that we exercised with. And so we landed on.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Re engineering or at that point, attempting to re engineer
tampon because that's what most of the people we spoke
to were using. And that's also seventy percent of us
women report tampons is their product of choice, So that's
where we could have the biggest impact. In the market,
everybody was saying the same thing. My tampon leaks far
(06:51):
before it's full. It's unreliable, it's uncomfortable. I pull it out,
there's a red line down the side. The whole rest
of the product is there. I'm like, are you even
doing your job right? And so we really wanted to
focus on that, that failure, right, the product failure that
causes the distraction whether the products could a fail or not.
(07:13):
And so we I mean, we discovered that vertical channels
that are present on almost all of the tampons in
the market are funneling the fluid away from the absorbent core,
causing it to not absorb evenly and then in turn
causing the product to potentially leak before it is full.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
And so what.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
We ideated at the D School at Stanford and what
we ultimately ended up developing is a helical spiral that
goes around the outside of the tampon. This helps the
tampon absorb more evenly in stages and to completion without
failing before it is full. And again it helps prevent
(07:55):
that premature leakage. And so the goal is to have
the tampon that is more relying liable, and the goal
is to have a product that we all can wear,
whether we're in sports, competing at the top of our
game or just going to yoga or walking down the street,
having something that we can actually depend on in trust.
And so it's been five years of developing that product
(08:17):
since since we started at Stanford, But I mean, I
couldn't be more proud to actually have the product out
in the world today. It's it's really cool to go
from like, you know, dorm room sketch to Okay, this
is actually real, this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I feel like that's like the like Stanford vibe, like
Silicon Valley vibe of like the dream of that ideation
to actual product, which I want to get to in
a little bit. But I also just want to take
a second to give some context for our listeners who
have not used Tampa or don't have a period right,
because like, yeah, I think what you talked about about
the distractions that you then have to deal with when
(08:52):
you should be focusing on whatever task is at hand,
and this spans like competitive athletes, but also like you know,
you're not supposed to keep a tampon in for more
than eight hours for risk of bacteria development and all that,
and so you know, if you're lucky enough to sleep
more than eight hours or don't have to do that,
Like you have to think about it as it relates
to when you're sleeping, or do you have to set
on early, or you know, if you have to fly
(09:14):
when you have your period, Like so many different factors
can affect the flow and the heaviness and it could change.
And if you're in a foreign environment or if you're
like in a different climate or tropic, like, it can
impact your body. And so there are just so many
times where you then have to think about that. And
it's partially because there's still taboo in people for whatever reason,
(09:35):
shame women about period stuff, and there's negative connotations with it,
but it's also a public health thing, Like it's not
sanitary if you're if anyone from any type part of
your body is bleeding around other people, right Like, that's
so it's it's I don't mean that in a negative way.
It's just like, you know, there's a reason people have
to put on gloves if they cut themselves when they're chefs,
right Like, you're not supposed to have that, you know,
(09:57):
permeate other things so it's just a constant going on
in the background, and so it can it's really it
can be really stressful, and especially for like teenagers or
people just starting like it's it's so different. So the
work that you're doing is incredible. So jumping into the
time at Stanford. So for those who don't know, the
D School, which it stands for Design School, is a
(10:19):
really innovative, creative resource rich part of the school which
different majors can have classes in their different lectures. I
clearly remember one class that I didn't take. What I
read about I just didn't work with my schedule. It
was called fail Faster, and the concept was how you
know when you're ideating, when you're problem solving, you want
to not be super married to one single idea, and
(10:43):
it's about kind of having an idea, testing it, analyzing it,
learning from it, adapting, evolving, changing your approach. Did you
do a lot of that as you were coming up
with the design and like what did that look like?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, I mean so much of it is iterating.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
I think the thing that's different for us is that
we are a medical device, and so in the way
that you can test different iterations of a software product
or landing pages or things like that. We were very
limited in what we could actually do from a physical
prototyping perspective because we are regulated by the FDA and
(11:23):
we are a medical device.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
We are a product that goes into somebody's body.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Now, what we can do is talk about the needs
with our users. Right, we can go and have endless
conversations and collect as much user insight as we possibly can.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Right, talk to people about.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
The period routines, their period habits, what is something that
is distracting you when you're preparing for your day, for
your game, whatever you're doing. And so we spend a
lot of time in what the d School calls the
need finding phase, so that we can really understand You
don't want to jump into a solution, right, I think
very often we jump to conclusions, we make assumptions, and
(12:08):
then we build a solution that is based on a
wobbly tower of assumptions and opinions.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And we want to make sure that any solution that
we arrive at is.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Grounded in the true needs of the users that we
want to solve a problem for.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
And so we spent a lot of.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Time on the need finding phase to make sure that
we were actually solving a problem that we had, because
if people were happy with their period products, then there
would be no reason for us to innovate in the category.
If people are happy with the performance of their tampons,
then we wouldn't need a better tampon.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
But that wasn't the case.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And then also,
I guess when you're going through that process, how do
you know when you have identified enough of a problem,
Like how many people do you need to speak to?
How many perspectives do you need to have before you're like,
all right, this clearly has legs, let's go with it.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I mean, when you start hearing it's about pattern recognition, right,
when you start hearing the same things over and over again,
that's when you know that you have found something. And
we kind of like we have different words for those,
like we're that's when you know you have a finding, right,
and when that finding leads to something that you can
(13:27):
understand about this particular user or customer or population, that's
when you've developed an insight. And so I think a
line that I used before that I think is so
was so resonant with us and our users and ultimately
resulted in this insight was finding that we had was
(13:49):
I pull out my tampon, there's a red line down
the side, and the whole rest of the product is there.
And we heard that over and over and over again
by asking question like interesting questions about periods, like, you know,
take me through your experience with your tampon, Take me
through your routine, walk me through step by step. So
you put the tampon in, how long are you wearing
(14:10):
it for? Your taking it out? What are you noticing
when you take it out? There's a red line down
the side. Okay, that's really interesting. And we collect all
of these findings that we have, we keep hearing this
over and over again, and the insight from that is
that the reason, like the tampons are failing before they're
full because there's a line down the side, right, And
(14:32):
that's really interesting. Well, why are tampons leaking before they're
full and causing this pretty much more product failure and
then in turn causing distraction. Oh, it's because there's these
vertical the vertical channels are causing this red line down
the side.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Okay, that's the problem.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Is that there are this red line down the side
there are these vertical channels down the side, and that
leads us to our solution that, Okay, how do we
disrupt the vertical channels. How do we create something that
is different from the vertical channels. And that's kind of
like how you get like from like a kind of
a building block like block by block by block.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
That's how you get to your solution.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Instead of saying, Okay, everybody hates tampons, we should just
design a new type of period product, right, Like, maybe
that's somewhere we would have gone, but we spoke to
our users and they were very regimented in their period routines,
and we didn't want to disrupt that. We didn't want
to say, oh, you don't like your tampon, here's some
(15:37):
new product that we invented that you're gonna have to
learn how to use and you're gonna have to trust
us that it's going to work.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
And you've never seen it before. We had to educate
you on it. Right.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
We actually just noticed that people were people were choosing
tampons because they were convenient, because they allowed them to
move their bodies, exercise, go swimming, all of these things.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
It was very very liberating product.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
At the same time, it's still had its constraints, and
so how do we look at the constraints of the
product where the product may be lacking and innovate there
so that we can impact.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
A huge market and a large amount of users.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Right, And am I correct that a very large percentage
of feminine care users use the same type of product
that they were taught to when they first got their period,
like with their mom.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, I mean it's it is a category that is
so influenced by mom, or by your big sister.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Or even from a sports.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Like so many athletes talk about getting their first period
when they're traveling with their team and it's like the
older girl on the swim team or the team captain
on your lacrosse team is giving you a tampon and
explaining to you how to.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Put it in. So it's somebody it's passed down.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
It is it is knowledge that has passed down from
somebody in your life that you trust.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
M H. And that like carries such a psychological weight
with it. I don't mean that in a negative way,
but just like you're you know, as you're going through
this huge change in your body, like all of the
chemicals in your body are changing when you're going through
puberty and you're you know, it's a fairly traumatic thing
to experience for the first little while. I mean, it's
so different and like the comfort that comes with the
(17:30):
initial like technique that you used. So I totally get that.
So did you pretty much know by the time you
graduated or before you graduated, that you were going to
pursue this entrepreneurial journey of trying to make this this
idea come to life.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
I think we didn't know how far we could take it.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Right, We had raised quite a bit of grant funding
while we were at Stanford, and that was it's such
a benefit of being added an institution like it is, right,
and also we were working on this project that a
lot of people saw merit and they saw the ability
for impact in a category that hasn't seen a ton
(18:13):
of innovation for a population that has can placent for decades.
So we went into the summer after graduation with grant funding.
But I think we didn't know, you know, was this
a fundable business. Were we going to be able to
raise the capital that we needed to invest in the
R and D? And so the goal for the summer
(18:35):
after graduation for Greta and myself was to go out
and figure out if this was a fundable business. And
so we use the grant funding that we had, the
advisors that we had to put ourselves in the best position,
whether that be setting up R and D, doing initial research,
(18:55):
interviewing the candidates to do the R and D, to
work like institutions and places that we could work with,
putting ourselves in the best position to then bring in
funding to kickstart a lot of the R and D.
And we were able to get a term sheet and
(19:17):
an offer for investment in the summer after graduation, and
not to us.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
That to us was the indication that people not.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Only believed in the product and the potential for the product,
but they believed in us. And that's so much of
early stage startups is like do I believe is the
market big enough? Is this a problem that needs to
be solved, and are these the right people to solve
this problem? And so the ability for us to get
an offer for investment a few months after graduating really
(19:49):
kicked off our first fundraise, which we did from friends
and family and from some smaller vcs in Silicon Valley
and Stanford Associated vcs and that allowed us to invest
in R and D y early on.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
That's amazing. Yeah, because the question I was going to
ask is like, how do you determine whether or not
it's a fundable initiative? And obviously getting a term sheet
is a very clear indication. But is that something that you, like,
were actively pitching. And I have never attempted to pitch.
I haven't had anything that is VC fundable, so I
don't know the exact process. I understand it on a
conceptual level, but like, is that something that you guys
(20:27):
actively went out and pitched or did it kind of
come to you through the initial research and you know,
initial funds grants that you were utilizing.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
We were we were going on and pitching. We had
put together a pitch check, we were pitching you know,
friends and family, angel investors, looking for introductions from people
that we met through Stanford, people that we met through
our past like work experiences, and we were like pounding
the pavement, like getting in front of anybody that we
(20:58):
could telling any But I think so much of it
is being confident in what you're doing. So when somebody says, oh,
what are you doing this summer? What are you doing
after graduation. I am building a company where we are
re engineering the tampon.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
For the first time in eighty years.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And there is power and there is confidence in that statement,
and there's also a commitment in that statement, because people
want to fund and people want to fund a business
where there are people that are committed to what they
are doing, that believe in what they're doing, and they're
confident in what they're doing. And so I think something
that Greta and I always said to ourselves that first
(21:41):
summer is like, we're building a tampon. We are building
a tampon company, we are building a women's health company.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
And we would just like say it over and over.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Again because that was the like outward commitment and confidence
that we needed to have going into every room.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I love that, and I gave me goosebumps because you're
so right that it's like it's the self belief that,
especially when you've put so much time in like you
earn it right like and you like should have full
faith in yourself. Understand it's a tough landscape out there
and nothing comes easy, But that's really incredible. Did you
enjoy the pitching process, like the actual being in the
(22:19):
room and pitching the product and why it was worth
investing in.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I think that it can get exhausting.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
It's like very it's very tiring, like just to lap
after your lap after lap doing the pitching. That being said,
I love telling stories and I love using storytelling as
a way to connect with people. And I think that
when you tell your story, when you find a way
(22:50):
to tell your story that connects with people and you
can see it on their faces when you're telling.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Your story, the story of the business.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
I think that that there's like a little bit of
magic to that that I do enjoy, and I think
that it is rewarding when you see residents in a room, right.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, completely, and like there are so many again, so
many synergies between us, because I was going to say
that with my you know, sponsorship pitching, which largely was
not successful over the course of my ten years, because
just you get so many more no's than yes. Is
totally the creativity involved in telling that story and to
(23:35):
your point, that storytelling and I love how you just said,
like the magic in that storytelling, it's it's really addicting
in a way, like it's so cool to know that
you have that impact. So I'm really glad that you
got to experience that as well.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, and I think so much of that, so much
of that learning is so much of it you're learning
on the fly, right you're doing this for the first time.
You're like, I'm trying to figure this out. But it
was really cool for me to feel like a lot
of the things that I the things that I was doing,
actually were rooted in experiences that I had had as
(24:13):
an athlete, and you know, also pitching myself for sponsorship
opportunities and pitching I worked in hospitality and I was
I didn't I haven't had a very.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Formal work experience in my life.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I worked as a lifeguard, I worked as a surf instructor.
Where I grew up, I had a surf lesson swim
lesson business, and so much of having my own business
was that was centered on the services that I was offering.
Was pitching myself to people because they were paying for
a service that I was providing. So my brand, my
(24:53):
personal brand, and the way that I would tell my
story was inextricably tied to the services that I was
pitching as my business. In the same way that the
personal brand that I had built for myself in the
context of my sport. That's a story to tell as well.
(25:13):
And so you kind of you're nervous and I'm doing
this for the first time. I have no idea what
I'm doing. But then you get in the room and
you start telling the story of the business and yourself
in the context of the business and what you're trying
to build.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
And a lot of those.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Learnings from my days having my search LUs in business
and my SI lesson business, they were coming back and
I was like, I have done this before, but in
a different form or a different outcome, right, Like, it's
the same process, it's a similar these are similar lessons,
and like I can take the experiences that I've had,
(25:48):
albeit not very standard work experiences. I can be effective
in this room even though I haven't had the fancies,
internships or the most common work experience.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yeah. No, totally. And I think that that ethos is
really relevant to kind of most people because people have
to kind of pitch themselves essentially, whether it's a job interview,
if it's data whatever it is, like when you are
trying to build that relationship your storytelling, and so I
think that concept of leaning into all your past experiences
(26:23):
and rooting what it is you're trying to get across
in those personal stories and personal experiences is some of
the most impactful ways to do that. So I think
that's really cool. We're going to take a quick break
and then we're going to be right back with Amanda
and if I'm honest as Julia Landauer, we are back
(26:46):
on If I'm honest with Julia landa Er with Amanda Calbreys,
who's the co founder of seql. Naming something, naming a product,
naming a service, a company name is monumental. And my
understanding is that Sequel is the current name, but it
was not the original name. Can you talk a little
bit about how you came to the original name and
(27:06):
how you decided that it was time to change it.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
We started out with a very funny naming history. Are
so I talked about I think I talked about this
as a class project, right, So it started at Stanford
of the class project. The original presentation had the name
Tampro on it and it was like, okay, professional Tampon's
(27:31):
Tampro like he and I think that was very like class.
It's a very class project name, like it's very it's
slightly juvenile like it, but it it was perfect for
that moment in time, and I think it's important to
appreciate like where you were in that moment in time
and what we called the class project. But we needed
(27:54):
to bring ourselves into a moment any space where we
had something that reflected the gravity and the expanse of
what we wanted to build, and that was we want
we are building, and we want to build a company
that is introducing women's health products that have never been
(28:19):
available because we haven't invested in them, we haven't innovated
on them, and we want to create products that deserve better,
right like they've always deserved better. We've been complacent about them,
we've ignored them. These products deserved better. So that's where
sequel comes from.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Sequels. It's the tampon two point zero.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
It's the sequel that these forgotten products, particularly the tampon,
deserved and it's the next chapter of these women's health products.
So that that's where that comes from, and we feel
that that's a much more accurate representation of the world
that we want to build. Love to think about brand
(29:02):
as like a world building exercise, Like your.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Brand is a world. What is the world that you
want to build?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Well, we want to build a world where period products,
necessary products, essential products for women are not being forgotten
and they're brought into their next chapter.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
That's such a great and I think it emphasizes the
holistic nature of your products, which are so important, it's
so essential, so integral to the fiber of you know,
menstuating people's life that it carries the appropriate gravity, which
I think is really cool from a logistic standpoint. Is
(29:42):
it an early enough switch that you like didn't have
to do too much on the consumer facing side or.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's that's right.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
I mean, we went through so many iterations of like
what should our name be, how like what should we do?
How should we change it?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
But we were.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Still so early in R and D that by the
time we changed the name, it was it was easy
to do. I think we're very thankful that we did that.
Now that we're consumer facing and looking at the way
that we show up with certain partnerships and announcements, and like,
(30:19):
I think that it's it's very fun to have a
name that is very different from the category and have
it be a little like, you know, we all know
that the Tampon brand names that all sound similar, and
we expect those types of names to be a part
of this category. And I think it's really cool when
we see one of our partners putting out an announcement,
(30:42):
like we're announcing our partnership with SQL, and people are like,
what is that, I don't know, like and then reading
about it, understanding the very logical and.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I think cool reason why we are named the way
that we are. It's very fitting.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
That's so true. And I am going to come back
to kind of being a CpG company in a second,
but since you've been talking about partnerships, I do want
to discuss some of the very very cool partnerships that
you have had. So first, about a month ago, you
announced a partnership with Stanford Athletics, which is the first
of its kind, and so can one as a Stanford
(31:20):
grad also, I just think that's really cool. It's so
fun to see the progress and the reinvestment back in
students that are really making or former students who are
really making a change in the world. So can you
talk about that.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
This Stanford partnership feels just like your goal to have
a Tampon on the side of your car.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Right.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
It feels like one of those partnerships that is groundbreaking
and I think will be the beginning of a shift
in what does it mean to have sponsors, what does
it mean to do something that nobody has done before.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
But we should have been doing this whole time.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
And I'm so thankful to the Stanford athletics team because
they we met and there was immediate alignment and it
wasn't like, oh no, how could we make this work.
I don't know this, We've never done anything like this before.
It was immediate alignment and it was we don't care
that nobody has done anything like this before. We don't
(32:25):
care that there's no playbook for this. We are happy
to be the first. We are happy to do something
that nobody else has done before. I make a statement,
and so we announced last month that we are the
Tampon of Stanford Athletics. It's the first collaboration between a
tam On company and an NCAA program ever, and obviously
(32:49):
we wouldn't have wanted to do it with anybody other
than Stanford Athletics. My co founder Greta played for the
Stanford lacrosse team, so it's amazing to hear her talk
about how meaningful it is that will now see sequel
tampons in the lacrosse locker room that she used to
(33:10):
be in.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
That is so cool. Congratulations, I mean, that is soak
and I'm so glad to hear that it was a
fairly streamlined process. Because of all the universities, you would
think that Stanford would be like innovative and open to
try things. And so it's really cool to kind of
not only I mean I know this and you know this,
but not only like talk to talk, but walk the
walk on all of the core values of the university.
(33:33):
And so talk to me about some of your other
partnerships because you had a presence at the Paris Olympics.
I just we want to hear all about it and
we want a fangirl over.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
We have had such a busy back half of twenty
twenty four. The summer, we announced that we are the
official tampon of the USL Super League, which is the
newest professional women's soccer.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
League in the US.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
We're really proud to partner with them. They're building something
that is incredible and that I mean we are partnering
them from day one, and we're so excited to see
them grow and grow with them.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
I mean, Stanford is a highlight of this year.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Because that is so against the grain and it's something
that nobody's done before. We did go to the Paris Olympics.
We were a part of the Athleta Power of She
activation in Paris. We sampled with them and Athleta is
an incredible brand.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
It's perfect brand alignment for us.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Athleta as the most beautiful workout sets that I can
wear to yoga, I can.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Wear them out and about.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
I can wear them casually, but they're also being worn
by Katie Ladeki and Simone Biles, who are two.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Of their athletes, and they're the goats.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
So it's it's a wonderful partnership for us because it
shows that.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
You can you can Simone Biles.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
And Katie Oldecki can wear the same athletic workout outfit
that you can wear to yoga or walking down the
street in the same way that you can be the
best athlete in the world, and you still need a
tampon that is reliable in the same way that I
need a tampon when I walk down the street that's
(35:31):
going to be.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Reliable for me.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
So I think that like the versatility of both our
product and athletics products for any type of woman is
really important and I love that alignment. What it was
a surreal experience to be at the Olympics. We also
had the opportunity to get some product out to some
(35:54):
of our favorite Team USA athletes prior to them being
a part of the Olympics, and we saw we saw
a couple Instagram posts from some of our favorite athletes
posting some of our merge and.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
So that was very cool.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
It was very very cool knowing that some of the
best athletes in the world, competing for the hardest arguably
the hardest Olympic team to make, are recognizing our product,
our brand like and showing it to their audiences.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
It was it was a dream. It was so so cool.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
And then we also just we just announced that we
are the official tampon of Athletes Unlimited, which is the
only professional acrosse and professional softball league in the US
for women, and they also have volleyball, they have basketball,
and they're really pioneers in women's professional sports leagues. They
(36:57):
have this like very interesting league and game structure that's
really exciting and like content oriented, action oriented, and like
really for the fans, so that fans can feel super
close to their bivorite players. Volleyball is one of the
fastest growing youth sports in the US, and they've really
(37:18):
made professional volleyball accessible for a lot of these young
fans and so perfect partner alignment there as well.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
That's incredible And something that I've picked up as we've
been talking, which I think is super admirable, is as
you're talking about your product that you're building, and that's
like first and foremost, but you talk about like the
importance of like every step of the ecosystem that you
are kind of serving, and I think that that's so
important and something that's overlooked a lot, and it's just
(37:48):
it's really like, kudos to you, and I applaud you
because I think that like the passion you clearly convey
for women's sports and women's well being and the team
dynamic and you know, being able to focus on the spoorart,
it's like it's so cool, like this is this feels perfect,
and so I just want to give that shout out
because I think it's really cool. Throwing it back real
(38:09):
quick before we take our next break with being a CpG.
And obviously there's so much that goes on behind the scenes,
and you've talked about some of the things like the
name or like doing research and R and D and
all that stuff. Well, were there any things that were
particularly unexpected on the like logistical back end, behind the
(38:29):
scenes side of starting a consumer package good company?
Speaker 3 (38:36):
I mean, everything is everything is unexpected and crazy all
the time.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
I mean, we spent five years in R and D
making this, and it's funny. You speak to like CBG
people and they're like, that's forever.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
And then you speak to medical device people because we
went through the FDA were a class to medical device,
were regulated by the FDA in the United States. You
speak to medical device people and they're like, you went
from notebook sketch to an FDA five ten K clearance
in four years, Like that's crazy, right, So it's all
about perspective, and so for us, it's like, you.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Know, you speak to CpG people and they're like, that's so.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Long, that's insane. And then the other perspective is that
that was really fast. But there's so many challenges when
you're building a physical product that you don't foresee when
you're starting, there's everything from building and developing the product,
getting a manufacturer that you trust and can rely on.
(39:40):
It's it's like making sure that the quality of your
product coming off the line is what you want it
to be. Then once you get through that, it's the
regulatory piece. When you get through that, it's the warehousing,
the fulfillment, the logistics, making sure that our customers are
getting their products. And then when the product gets to
the customer, are they happy with the product? What do
(40:02):
they think about the product? What's going to get them
to continue using our product? And then obviously there's the
whole marketing piece as well, which is like what is
the right audience for us to go after? How do
we and I think for us, like we have the
perspective that you know, women's sports isn't just about people
that play sports.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
It's not just.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
About like the people watching women's sports are not just
people that play sports. If if the only people that
watched the WNBA were people that played basketball, we wouldn't
be seeing the explosive growth in fandom that we're seeing
of that league today, right, And so we need to
think about our customers as not only.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
People that play sports, but people that watch sports.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
So there's that marketing component as well that we're working
through and testing and figuring out.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, And is it safe to say that, like you
were figuring it out as you go and learning as
you go.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
That's the nature of a startup, right, That's why we
get our hands dirty and we work on a small,
scrappy team on really interesting problems that we want to solve, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
And I think that's an important flag though, because I think,
you know, especially especially people who like aren't going to
an you know, an entrepreneurial focused university or not in
that regional area where so much of you know, startups
are born, this idea that you have to have a
clear idea of how you're going to get there, or
(41:29):
you know, or it's not worth it. Like, I think
it's so important to reiterate the message that many, many
people have the vision, have the idea, and just and
most importantly, I think, have the belief in themselves and
confidence in themselves that they will figure it out along
the way. I think there's a misconception that you need
to you know, you don't need a supply chain, you know,
(41:50):
manufacturing background to go into this physical product, you can
figure it out. So I think that's a really nice
example of you know, just that dive in head first,
believe that you'll figured out, ask questions around yourself with
good people, outsource when you need to.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Yeah, that's the biggest thing is like bringing I think
the biggest the biggest asset that a founding team or
a founder can have is knowing when to bring on
help and bringing on people that know more than you'll
ever know about a topic or a part of your business, right,
(42:30):
like bringing on somebody with so much experience that they
can help execute and that you as the founder, your
job is not to do everything. Your job is not
to be the best at everything. Your job is to
facilitate and create a space for the best people to
do their best work. That's the best way to be
a founder.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yeah, And that brings back the importance of the storytelling
component that you talked about earlier. Like the way that
you're going to bring in these really knowledgeable experience like
top ten to your talent people is by articulating the
vision and sharing the passion. And that's where I think,
like especially that that little GENIESI qua from a founder
(43:10):
is so important because you bring that magic to it
that then makes people want to get involved.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Totally, totally.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
I love it. Oh, I love it so much. We're
going to take one more break, but then we're going
to be back with Amanda Calbreys. We are back on
if I'm honest with Julia landau Er with our guest
Amanda Calbres from the sequel. So you talk about how
(43:39):
pretty early on after graduating you were able to get
out and start pitching for some VC funding, and it
has been widely reported, especially in the recent past, that
women founders receive a very small percentage of overall VC funding,
and we hope that that's changing. There's awareness now at least.
But can you talk little to the experience that you
(44:01):
personally had you and Greta had being female founders going
after VC funding.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Yeah, when we were when we were going out and
pitching for funding, we recognized that we were two young
women and we were pitching a product that was meant
for women, and so we had we had some hurdles
to overcome. But I do think that for us going
out and pitching, a lot of it was about against
(44:29):
storytelling and making sure that we were clearly communicating to
whoever our audience was on the other side of the pitch,
but they understood that this was a need that needed
to be solved, whether they could empathize with the problem
or whether they could sympathize with the problem, that this
was a this was a critical problem that needed to
(44:52):
be solved.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
And I think that what we did really.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Well was asking our audience to, you know, ask around
if they couldn't empathize and they can only sympathize with
the problem, ask your wife, your daughter, your female friends,
ask them what they think about this category, this market,
(45:17):
do some research and come back to us with any
questions that you have.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
And I think being open to that, being open to
investors wanting to do research with the people around them
that they care about the most. I think people feel
the most comfortable.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Taking risks on things and taking that some things when
they understand it, which is why like which is why
it's so hard to raise money for pampons or anything
in the women's health space, because if it doesn't if
you don't feel like it affects you and you don't
feel like you can relate to it, it's much more
difficult to take a risk on it so making sure
that we are telling the story in the way in
(45:52):
a way where people feel comfortable asking questions, they feel
comfortable engaging with us and comfortable engaging with the pep
in their lives to ask some really hard questions or
ask some maybe questions that they never thought they'd be
asking of their friends, of their partners. We need to
facilitate an environment and a conversation where they.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Can feel comfortable doing that.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
And so that means we need to be really confident
in our belief that this would be a huge business.
We need to be confident that this is a business
that needs to exist. This is a problem that needs
to be solved. But this is a company that were
the right people to do it. This is a company
being built by people that are exactly the.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Founders that should be doing it.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
And I think that's a huge founder product fit, especially
for CPGG, is a huge deal when pitching as well.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
Yeah, and you talking reminded me of I don't know
who said this. I cannot find the accreditation needed, but
a quote that privilege is invisible to those who have it,
and I feel like that is probably like an additional
hurdle that you have to deal with to your point,
as a female Letting co founded female product company Pitching too,
(47:05):
I would assume majority men like needing to have that
education process, which not every investor is going to want
to be educated like you hope that they do, but
like there's clearly like you should, I would assume that
it almost can make the process easier if you see
that willingness, and or I should say I shouldn't make
the process easier. Nothing about raising money is easy, but
(47:27):
like you know, makes it maybe smoother if you see
that there's that willingness to learn totally.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
And I have one of our one of our investors
is absolutely incredible. It's Mark Hershinson at Pair VC, and
I love this anecdote from when we were raising money.
She is a woman, and she obviously understood the need
(47:55):
that we were trying to solve very deeply, and in
trying to communicate that to some male investors, it was
more it was us and some male investors. She knew
that in order to get these male investors to understand
what we what the gravity of what we were trying
(48:15):
to solve, she had to put it in their terms.
And so she said, you know, some of you are
new parents. Some of you have, our parents have had children,
you've all been through the diaper phase. And she's like,
imagine you're running through the airport, you're changing planes, and
(48:36):
your child.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Of wearing diapers.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
What's the one thing, like you're in this kind of
like state of chaos, what is the one thing that
you need that diaper to do as you're trying to
execute something that absolutely must happen, high pressure, high stakes.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
They cannot leak And that was such a powerful use
of store.
Speaker 3 (49:00):
Are you telling to build mpathy with an audience, But
we'll never experience their tampa leaking. They'll never experience how
many US tampas, but they'll experience a diaper leaking while
you're changing planes, running through an airport with a child
in a lot of suitcases.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Yeah, Oh my goodness. This makes me like a little
angry because you may saying that example of diapers, It's
like that is such a similar product. I had never
I had never drawn the parallels there. And there has been,
to my understanding, quite a bit of innovation around diapers,
around materials, around sustainable stuff, Like that's a whole no
totalization with like not putting chemicals in your body on
(49:39):
your body whatever, and like there's so much iteration around that,
and yet a very similar product that affects roughly fifty
percent of the population has not been innovating, Like women
just keep getting screwed, Like, oh my goodness, So thank
you again for stepping up for the space, because yeah,
I haven't thought about it like that, and oh yeah,
(50:00):
but I'm glad that that story resonated because it does.
It's it's that would be terrible.
Speaker 3 (50:05):
Yeah, And for all the super dads in the room,
as they all are, they were like, of course, like,
of course, I'm like carrying my child and I don't
want the diaper to leap, like I've got to get
on the plane, and like and they knew like immediately
they resonated with that, right, So.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Yeah, no, that's that's a really to your point, great
example of storytelling, and I appreciate that on behalf of
all the women out there. I only have a couple
more questions for you before we get into our rapid
fire if you're honest, But what would you say so
far have been some of your proudest moments with SQL.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
We Oh, my god, proudest moments. I think everything I
think I think both my co founder and I we
would say that one of our proudest moments is watching
the first like at scale production line of our product,
(51:06):
like like spiral tampons, like coming off the line and
like seeing it and holding it for the first time
and being like, oh my god, this is real.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
I think that's one.
Speaker 3 (51:14):
I think another one is being in Paris this past
summer was so incredible for all of us, for the team,
like it just that was such a huge moment because
you're like, you know, you're in it's like twenty twenty
and you're trying to build this product and everybody's always talking.
(51:38):
Everybody's always talking about the next Olympics. When the Olympics
is happening, right, so it's like Tokyo twenty twenty, twenty
twenty one, and this whole conversation around the Olympics, and
although you guys going to the Olympics, you guys doing
anything from the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
We're like, no, we're not doing anything to the Tokyo Olympics.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
We like, you're still in R and D and two
four years later, three years later, be there in Paris.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
That was that was huge moment.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Oh, that's incredible. Yeah, and on a global stage. I mean,
like that is with like the definition of human excellence
and to be associated with that, like that's I'm really
glad that you guys got to go there.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
So what's next, What's next for you? What's next for SQL?
What are we going to manifest here? Today?
Speaker 3 (52:23):
We have some really exciting partnerships coming up, So.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
So excited for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Also, we're starting to build out our athlete rosters, so
we are finally I mean, this is such a dream
for me to be able to work with some of
the most amazing athletes in the world that want to
talk about periods and talk about what it's like to
perform on their period. We're building our athlete roster and
that's a big focus for twenty twenty five and I'm
so excited to start announcing some of the athletes that
(52:54):
we will be working with next year.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
That's incredible. Oh well, I am rooting for you. I
am so excited to follow along on that. And also
I have I have bought my sequel so the next
time that I need them, I will be.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
Trying them out and amazing.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
I'm really looking forward to it because it is such
a I don't know, it's a little like it's emotional
and it's like a comfort thing, and I think you
can get in your own head about it. So I'm
really excited totally to pivot to our final segment. I
can't believe all this time has already gone by, but
the rapid fire. If you're honest, what is your go
to quick and easy dinner?
Speaker 3 (53:30):
Oh, I am such a like a bunch of veggies
in a cast iron like on the stone rice, Like
I don't know, just like I feel like it's my
athlete days. Like if I'm like getting home tired after
a long day work, I'm like grilled chicken veggies on
the cast iron rice, like just reverting back to the
(53:51):
like grinding it out athlete days.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
And then I like sit down with my k meal
and I'm like, oh my god, this is literally like
I'm training again.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
But it's new tree and dense and it doesn't have but.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Non quick and easy.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Like I love making homemade pizza, like actually rolling out
dough with like letting it rise with the yeast and
like actually making that for my friends.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Like I actually think that's super easy, but it seems like.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
It's not so my husband Ben, and especially our friends here.
There are a few friends here where like we have
we have a wood burning oonie oven, and then our
friend has the gas powered Ouoni pizza oven and like
they like have so fun red sheets of different like
the chemical properties of the dough that they're making are
not chemical, but like the ingredient properties of the does
(54:37):
that they're making and like with sugar and oil and
wetness and yeast, and it's like, oh my goodness, yes,
like keep making pezza.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
No, we we're gonna have a pizza day.
Speaker 3 (54:47):
We're gonna fast and loose in my household, it's like
I don't even know where our measuring cups are and
like a little bit of yeast, a little bit of
water dough like or flour, oil, sugar, and then it
just comes together. And my friends are like my friends
have like my French friends have watched me cook and
they're like, okay, started.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
On behalf of Ben, because I can like, no, stop
not measuring your baking.
Speaker 3 (55:21):
My good friends is like a chef and has worked
in Michelin Star restaurants and is like he'll come over
and like be watching me cook and he'll just be
like you got it, you got it, like no worries,
you got this.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
Hey, if it tastes good and it's edible at the end,
that's all that matters. I don't cook very much. I'm
like the professional dishwasher in the house, so I can't
really contribute it to styles of Yeah, yeah, you know what,
we each serve a purpose. What musical artists are you
listening to a lot right now?
Speaker 3 (55:53):
Oh, I'm listening to travel Aroone like everyone else. I
feel like that's a like a just classic answer, But.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
I love it. She's on several of her songs are
on my rotation on Spotify. Ye the last. If you're honest,
what is something that you're grateful for right now?
Speaker 3 (56:12):
But I'm so grateful that I am two blocks from
the ocean right now. I'm so grateful to live in
a city and get to be close to the ocean
right now.
Speaker 2 (56:22):
I'm a surfer.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
I am an ocean person through and through, and just
to be able to jump in the water at the
end of a long day is something I think I'll
look back on later in life and be like, Wow,
you got to live.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
That close to the beach in your twenties. That's so cool.
Speaker 1 (56:40):
That is so cool and also very brave because it's
very cold water out there.
Speaker 2 (56:44):
It is cold.
Speaker 1 (56:45):
Yeah, Amanda, that's amazing. Where are some of the best
places for people to find you online and to find SQL.
Speaker 3 (56:53):
So at triseql is our Instagram and TikTok. You can
find me at ap Calibres on Instagram and then sometimes
I post on LinkedIn and sometimes I don't see goodbye
me there, but yeah Instagram to talk for SQL and myself.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
I will link all that in description and include the website. Amanda,
thank you so much. This was so cool to hear
your journey. I am so excited to now know you
and follow you on this journey because it's such impactful
work and making stand for proud for sure.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
So so thankful to be here to know you and
appreciate everything.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
Thank you everyone. That is our episode. I will be
sharing all this information on Amanda and SEQL and Greta,
her co founder, and if you like this episode, please
share it with someone who you think would enjoy it
as well. And as always, thank you for letting us
be honest with you. And I will see you in
two weeks
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