EP. 78 TURNING "NO" INTO AUNT FLOW with Claire Coder - Founder and CEO, Aunt Flow

ABOUT CLAIRE CODER:

BIO: 

Claire Coder (Forbes 30under30) is a 28-year-old Thiel Fellow and founder and CEO of Aunt Flow. On a mission to make the world better for people with periods, Aunt Flow stocks public bathrooms with freely accessible tampons and pads. Through Claire’s leadership, Aunt Flow launched patented tampon & pad dispensers in 60k+ bathrooms and raised $17m+ in venture capital. 

Coder launched her first company at age 16, designed a bag for Vera Bradley that sold out in 24 hours, and has her own line of GIFs. After getting her period in public without the supplies she needed, at 18 years old, Claire dedicated her life to developing a solution to ensure businesses and schools can sustainably provide quality period products for free in public bathrooms. 

Since 2016, Aunt Flow has worked with thousands of businesses and schools, including organizations like Google, Princeton University, Netflix, and 30+ professional sports stadiums, to offer freely accessible period product dispensers, filled with organic cotton tampons and pads. 

Aunt Flow has donated over 7 million organic cotton tampons and pads to menstruators in need since 2021. 

Claire’s ultimate goal in life is for any menstruator to walk into any bathroom and never need to worry if they start their period, because Aunt Flow period products are freely available!

Claire’s story has been featured in TeenVogue, Forbes, Fortune, and she starred in TLC’s Girl Starter Season 1. Claire speaks regularly surrounding her advocacy work, starting a social enterprise and journey as a female founder. For more information, please visit 

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairecoder/ 

Websites:

• clairecoder.com (Personal)
• goauntflow.com (Company)

SHOW INTRO
Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.

EPISODE 78 … and my conversation with Claire Coder the Founder and CEO of Aunt Flow. 

On the podcast our dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and human’s influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.    

The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.

VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant. 

You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.

Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience. 

SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org

When Claire Coder was 18 years old she was at an event and she used a public restroom. While there, she discovered that she had unexpectedly started her period. And… she didn't have a quarter. 

Why she would have needed a quarter and what happened as a result of not having one is the subject of an exceptional entrepreneurial trajectory that has changed woman's public bathrooms around the country.

We’ll get to all of that in a moment but first though, a few thoughts…

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What if you had an amazing idea that you knew was a no-brainer, an idea that provided something deeply necessary, but it seemed that everyone had overlooked it.

What if you had a moment of insight from a personal experience that chartered out a clear path for providing a product and service that seemed to satisfy the deeply under met needs of more than 50% of the population?

And what if when you took this moment of clear mental insight to a group of venture capitalists explaining that this was not just an idea that would not only satisfy a certain customer need but that could be an extraordinarily profitable business operation but when you asked for their involvement, they simply said… “NO”.

And what if you heard “NO” 86 times when trying to get people interested in supporting your idea. Would you give up? Would you have already given up after