January 21, 2015 • 45 mins
Julie Sygiel reinvented the period panty with her company Dear Kate. Cristen and Caroline chat with this startup STEM major-turned-underwear entrepreneur about everything everything from venture capital to feminist dads and how Dear Kate is hoping to disrupt the lingerie industry.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Supports
dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And last time on Stuff I've Never
Told You, we talked about the history of panties or knickers,
depending on where you live, and today we're really excited
(00:25):
to talk to a panty entrepreneur. That's right, we are
talking to Julie Siegel today. She's the founder of dear
Kate and they specialize in some pretty special undergarments as
well as yoga pants. We can't forget the yoga pants,
that's right. Dear Kate started out, as we'll learn more
(00:46):
about from Julie, as a new kind of period underwear
for women, because for anyone listening who has a period,
we probably have all ruined so many pairs of under
aware because, let's face it, run in the middle underwear
is usually not designed to handle menstruation, which gave Julie
(01:09):
a brilliant idea well, so it helped for sure that
Julie herself has a background in a stem field, not
to mention business, so when she had to tackle this
issue of, like you said, regular underpants not being able
to handle our bodily functions as women. She was able
(01:30):
to combine her great business acumen with her scientific background
and create a brand new type of product for women
who you know, have regular body functions. That's right, Yeah,
periods in addition to things like urinarian continence, pelvic organ
pro lapse, yeast infections, cervical fluid, all things that we've
(01:50):
talked about on stuff Mom never told you. So we
hope that you enjoyed this conversation that we had with
Julie about Dear Kates as well as period underwear, feminism,
and what it's like to be an entrepreneur these days. Well, Julie,
first of all, thanks so much for joining us on
(02:11):
the podcast. Um, for our listeners, could you just introduce
yourself and who you are and what you do? Absolutely? Um. So,
I'm Julie Siegel and I'm the founder of Dear Kate,
And so Dear Kate is I start up and we
make a line of performance underwear, and more recently, we
just added yoga pants to our line, so we're super
(02:34):
pumped about that. Um. But the special thing about both
the underwear and the yoga pants is that they both
have our patent pending fabric lining in them, so it
is way better than your regular type of underwear or
pants because it has the special fabric in it. UM.
And I actually studied a chemical engineering in college, so
I got to help out in terms of like leading
(02:56):
the development of creating the fabric UM. So the inner
lining is actually moisture wicking and stain releasing, and then
the outer layer UM is protective and link resistant. So
basically it started in an entrepreneurship class and UM and
so we were like, you know, men's bodies and women's
bodies work differently, how come no one's making better underwear
(03:19):
for women? UM, So we came up with the idea
to make like the Wonder Woman pair of underwear that
you can wear during your period and be totally prepared
for anything. Well, Julie, what what inspired you to make
that switch from your earlier plans of working in marketing
for a pharmaceutical company or perhaps the chemical engineer in
(03:42):
the food industry to becoming a lingerie entrepreneur instead? Um? Yeah,
you know what. I was looking back at that interview
that I did UM when I was a freshman in college,
and I was like, wait, really, I said, I wanted
to do marketing for fun nautical company. I like, what
was I thinking? Like, I clearly didn't know myself then, Um,
(04:04):
but you were eighteen. Don't we all know ourselves when
we're when we're president Colley. Yeah, it's funny because I
was good at math and science in high school and
so my mom said you should be a chemical engineer.
They make a boatload of money. And UM. I was
like great, Um, that's that sounds good. UM. So I
(04:25):
majored in chemical engineering and and sort of like all
through my four years, I was like, Okay, what do
I do with this major? And so I had so
many different ideas, and you know, one of them was
creating new types of foods. I explored working like cosmetics industry. Um.
And then I was like, well, maybe I can go
into the marketing side for something that needs engineering, um,
(04:48):
like a pharmaceutical company for a brief time. Um. And
it wasn't until I took my entrepreneurship class um in
my junior spring where I was like, oh my gosh,
Like I felt like our product would make women's lives easier.
And so you know, I talked about underwear seven that semester.
All my friends were like this is amazing. You know,
(05:10):
no one else is making this kind of underwear. I
really want some of this. UM. So that's when I
was like, I want to do this for real, and
I can actually use my engineering degree doing something that
I really believe in. And that's such a fantastic example
too of how a STEM career can lead to something
(05:30):
that we probably wouldn't typically think of as a STEM career. UM.
But I also, in addition to um STEM, I also
wanted to ask about feminism because you've talked UM about
feminism and some interviews and how you are a feminist.
So how does that inform your work not only at
(05:51):
the deer k office, but also in marketing and even
in the venture capital world. Absolutely, UM, I yeah, I
think like at my core, I'm a feminist. It's something
that I've grown up with because my dad was a
huge feminist and UM, he actually stayed home and took
(06:11):
care of me when I was younger, and my mom
was the one who Um, she was a lawyer and
so she made the money. UM. And so I've always
seen from an early age, like the the fact that
my parents were role models of doing things non traditionally UM.
And so He very much always instilled in me that, um,
(06:32):
you know, I can do anything as well as men
can do it. Um. And you know, he would sometimes
go the other way and he's like, you can do
it better, and I'm like, well, wait a second, UM,
we're just trying to get to equality here. But it's
really something that nowadays when I see marketing or advertising
or situations that are non equal between men and women, UM,
(06:58):
because it's been so ingrained me from a young age,
I feel like it jumps out and it looks weird
and it feels weird, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Um.
Whereas you know, a feminism isn't a concept that you're
super familiar with. It just feels like regular society, like normal, um,
the status quo. And so I think that I've been
(07:20):
able to these situations from a lens of saying like
this doesn't feel equal to me, and what can we
do um to to strive towards equality for for men
and women, so that at the end of the day,
you know, we're all humans. At the office, we do
talk a lot about feminism and you know, men and
(07:41):
women's roles in society and how that's evolving and how
we can push that conversation forward, and what we do
and what we produce, how that adds to the conversation.
So about a year ago, we decided to name each
of our underwear collections after a woman in history, and
then we decided to feature women as our models, who
(08:05):
we admire because of who they are and what they
do and not only how they look. UM. So there's
usually some correlation between the person that we name the
collection after and then who our models are. So um.
For example, we named the LA collection after Ella Fitzgerald,
and then our model was Mary Beth Duran, who is
(08:27):
an independent musician. UM. So we feed agraph to her
singing in the studio in her underwear and recording things.
And it's it's like a breath of fresh air when
you see a lingerie campaign when there's a woman who's
not just standing there looking sexy with her mouth half open,
(08:47):
you know, like looking for approval from someone else, or
like she's not quite sure what she's doing. Um. Because
that's what we were seeing with all of these other
lingerie companies, and we were talking about in the off
is and I was like, you know, that's not aspirational
to me. Um, you know, I aspire to be someone
(09:08):
who's a mover and a shaker and a doer, and
he was really happy and confident, and so we decided
as much as possible to photograph our models doing things
that they love. UM. So we love the photoshoot of
Mary bath Um singing in our underwear and just having
a good time, and so we have done that with
(09:29):
a bunch of collections. Now we've had a florist who
owns her own UM floral boutique. We have athletes, and
then recently we did the Aida campaign, which was our
collection named after Ada Lovelace, the world's first computer programmer. UM.
(09:50):
And so for that campaign, we actually invited six women
to model for us who worked in tech and so
that was super fun because it was a chance for
us to showcase women who we admire because of what
they do. UM. And it's one of those things where like,
I don't know how to code, but I very much
(10:11):
appreciate that there are women who are experts at that
because I want someone of my gender represented at the table,
you know, when decisions are being made or actual systems
are being designed. It's so important for us to have
to have women there. And like when you think about it,
everything in our world is going digital, and so we
(10:31):
desperately want females to be a part of that and
a part of shaping how that's all implemented. And then
when it comes to raising money for our company, you know,
I've pitched so many different investors and talked to a
lot of different people. And one thing that I love
(10:52):
about our investors is, you know, they not only share
our goal of making money, but um, you know, equally
as importantly is pushing the envelope and pushing the agenda
forward UM for women. And so one thing that I
love about about having this greater mission besides making money
(11:14):
is how we're trying to be a role model for
other companies and and so you know, I think a
lot of apparel companies show their models portrayed in these
somewhat disempowering poses or um situations, and because they think
that that's what sells. And so if we're able to
(11:35):
show the opposite and show that actually women in Laingree
can be super smart and super empowered and that there's
so much more to women than just how we look
and be successful doing that, then that's kind of an
incentive for all of these companies that even if they're
just focused on making money, they could change the way
(11:58):
that they portrayed their models. Well. In speaking of models
and marketing, UM, we have to talk about the controversy
the deer Kate attracted during its campaign for the at
a collection which included, um, a photo spread with women
(12:19):
in tech, including past stuff I've never told you, guess
Audiburner of skill Crush, and it featured these women in
their underwear, and I mean much of the media coverage
focused on it's possible repercussions for women in tech, saying, oh, well,
these women want respecting the industry, why are they posing
in their underwear? And I mean that's kind of all
(12:39):
the conversation was focused on. And you had such a
great response to that, And I was also wondering what
you think it says more broadly about women body policing
and just this constant sexualization of the female body, whether
we are doing our work or not. Yeah, we were
(13:00):
getting shocked that it got so much press and so
much discussion, UM, because to us, it was an extension
of what we've done for months now in terms of
featuring non traditional models. UM. And you know, I know
that women attack is kind of a hot button subject
and there is a lot of discussion about it. UM
(13:23):
for good reason, because, UM, you know there are issues
with um sexism towards women in tech. UM. But I
didn't really expect so many people waving their hands and saying, WHOA,
this is crazy, UM, saying like I can't believe these
women would do this to pose in their underwear. I mean,
(13:44):
after everything that we're fighting for for women, UM, then
these men see these women in their underwear, and now
they're not going to take them seriously. They're not going
to take any women in tech seriously anymore. And to me,
that was just so such an on issue because if
you think about it, you know, what does that say
about our society. It's saying that, you know, we are
(14:07):
totally okay and perfectly fine with professional models being seen
in their underwear. UM. Nobody raised an eyebrow when we
featured athletes in their underwear, or a florist or a singer. UM.
But all of a sudden, when we featured women who
work in tech in their underwear, people got their panties
all on a bunch. Excuse the passing, UM, because they're
(14:29):
saying women in tech can't do that, and that women
tech have to address a certain way, they have to
behave a certain way in order to be taken seriously. Um.
But but in my mind, you know, women should be
taken seriously regardless of what they do and of what
we're wearing. Um. So, you know, what I'm wearing or
(14:49):
what somebody who works in tech is wearing has absolutely
zero reflection on their intelligence, their capability to do a
great job, um, you know, to create an innovative product.
And so I think it's really sad to think that
women are expected to censor what we wear and what
(15:10):
we do for fear of how that will cause men
to think about us. You know, I think if that's
actually what someone is saying, then we need to examine
that and look at how can we help these men
to see women as more than just objects and more
than just how they look, because that then that's that's
a bigger problem, or or more of a problem than um,
(15:31):
how women are behaving. So it brought up a lot
of interesting conversations that we didn't necessarily foresee. Um But
at the end of the day, I think it was
you know, we I loved a lot of the comments
and responses that we got positive comments as well, um
(15:51):
from a lot of people and our models who are
just wonderful and in commenting on it, and Auta in
particularly gave a bunch of great interviews and talking about
how listen people need to be comfortable, um with with
the notion that women are multifaceted, where complex, we're in
depth people, um, and we shouldn't be you know, boxed
(16:12):
into behaving a certain way or be defined, um by
our profession. And I also loved your response on Twitter
with the hashtag not controversial, which was just such a
perfect and sustinct way to diffuse it because it's like, oh, yeah,
that's really not controversial, nor should it be. Yeah no,
(16:33):
And um, one of my friends called me and she
was like, this is ridiculous. Like two days after the
Time magazine or Time online our article came out that
called the campaign controversial, and she was like, this is ridiculous.
Like I'm going to post a selfie of myself working
in my underwear and like hashtag it not controversial, like this,
(16:56):
I cannot stand this. And so she said that, and
then I was talking to other friends. They were like,
oh my gosh, I'm gonna do it too, and so
it became those larger movement. Um. So of course I've
posed in my underwear as well and hashtag and not controversial. Um.
So that was really fun to see so many women
who not only said that they supported us, but actually
(17:19):
posted selfies and underwear saying this is not a big deal. Well,
then that leads us to your response to the Victoria's
Secret Perfect Body campaign. And I'm interested in the response
that you received to this too, because this campaign featured
real world women with diverse bodies in their underwear as well.
So what was the thinking behind the response to the
(17:41):
Victoria's Secret campaign, which featured of course Victoria's Secret models
in their underwear with the banner perfect body, right, Um, yeah,
it's it's It's interesting because we heard about the Victoria's
Secret Perfect Body campaign, saw the photo, we talked about
it in the office, and within like two hours we
(18:03):
were like, we have to we have to produce an
alternative to this. Um, because I think it's sad that
we oftentimes see photos like that, the one like the
one that Victoria's Secret produced all the time, and because
they don't usually say the perfect body on top, we
(18:25):
just take it for granted, you know, and no one
thinks twice about it. But this time they took it
too far. I know that it was referencing the body
bra and not these women's actual physical boys. But you know,
that's a new one that no one's going to get
at the very first glance. You have to glance at
it twice to really see that. UM. So we feel
very uncomfortable with that message that it was sending and
(18:49):
thinking about it unless we unless we were provided with
other options. UM, it's it's sometimes not as jarring or
like not as um obvious how strong that message is.
And so by producing an alternative where they could be
(19:10):
juxtaposed side by side, UM, I think it made it
all the more clear, and um drove home the point
that there are so many different bodies, UM, and everybody
is valid and you know, worthwhile. So so that was
a really fun and very spontaneous campaign that we literally did.
(19:33):
We put together in like a day and a half
or two days and shot it, produced it, you know,
send an email out to hundreds of my friends and
just said, hey, like we want to provide a response
to this UM and and do you want to be
part of it? So we had ten women who were
as diverse as possible given a short turnaround time, I
(19:55):
recognized that, um, you can always do more to show university.
So so in general, the response was very positive to
the photo. We posted it on Facebook and didn't pay
to promote it or anything, so in terms of organic
share us on Facebook, it actually reached over one point
one million people and was shared I think it is
(20:18):
almost ten thousands, like nine thousand seven or eight hundred times,
just blew us away. So it was good, it was fun,
and I would say that the response was almost all positive.
You know, you're always gonna have some haters who say, oh,
like you know these bodies of various shapes and sizes, um,
the women are too obies or whatever. And then or
(20:39):
you have people who say, well, what about skinny people?
You know you're skinny shaming, and it's like, well, we
have a size two in there, and you know, we're
not saying that there's anything wrong with banks skinny. We're
saying love everyone, and and it's been it's been a
good brand exposure. UM. But I felt like I felt
(21:01):
really good doing it because we try to be as
inclusive as possible. UM, so I felt like we would
really you know, walk the walk in terms of like
a lot of other laundrie companies, they wouldn't be able
to post a response picture because they've traditionally, even if
they're not doing it as egregiously as Victoria's Secret is,
(21:23):
they traditionally only featured like super skinny white women, And
so we go out of our way to provide more diversity,
with the caveat that nothing is perfect and probably at
any point you can always add even more. UM. But
I felt like it's a nod to our intentions and
what we try to do and what we have done
(21:44):
in the past. So now, Julie, that we've talked about
the importance of body diversity and ad campaigns and your
own campaign featuring a diverse range of bodies, what how
do you think it is to provide products for a
wide range of bodies and how did you guys come
(22:05):
to do that at Dear Kate. Sure, Yeah, it's a
really it's a really good question, um, and something that
I find very interesting and perplexing. Actually, how segregated the
UM plus size clothing market is from smaller sizes. UM.
We called them miss ease sizes, and you know, When
(22:27):
we first started, we were super small, and so we
only offered I think the size extra small through extra large,
and so for us, we thought that was a big
size range UM and you know, have limited funds in
the beginning to produce inventory and UM. To be honest,
I was kind of intimidated by the notion of creating
(22:48):
a plus size line UM or adding those sizes, because
it wasn't as simple as just scaling our patterns and
making them bigger UM. But we needed to actually create
new patterns because it's very important to me that we
we have a really good fit and so so UM
(23:09):
we would have to work with a pattern maker to
have a separate UM fit model who would try everything
on and actually create new patterns for size one accent
above UM. So in the beginning, we just started out
with regular, extra small through extra large, and we had
a lot of requests from women who were larger saying,
(23:31):
you know, I love your idea, I love your concept,
and I would like to wear your underwear. And so
about a year and a half ago, I guess we said,
you know what, there's so much demand and we want
to be able to offer a wetter range of sizes.
UM so let's do it. Let's let's see what we
can do. And so we spent a lot of time
(23:53):
and did a lot of fittings to make sure that
we felt confident in um, the fit of our of
our plus size line, and we actually call them Queen
sizes UM, which is not just for fun. Like our
pattern maker UM she was she called the patterns missy
patterns and Queen size patterns and I was like, Oh,
(24:15):
that's cute, and she was like, no, that's what they're
called in the industry. And I was like, oh my gosh,
I love that so much. UM, let's call it the
Queen's Size collection. So we stuck with that, UM. And
you know, it's been really awesome since we since we
launched our larger sizes UM. They bring in a significant
amount of revenue and so UM, you know, from a
(24:38):
financial standpoint, it makes sense for us, in addition to
just the notion that we want to make our technology
and our underwear and our yoga pants available for as
many women as possible. UM. And I do know that,
you know, we can't say we have garments for every
woman because there are women who fall um, you know,
(24:58):
above or below our current size ranch offerings UM that
it is important to us that we we do what
we can UM and we do what makes sense financially. UM.
So it's it's fun when you're able to find something
that aligns with your goals of providing UM as many
(25:19):
sizes as possible. But then also when you can tell
your investors, hey, actually this makes sense and we should
be listening to these customers, not just because it's the
right thing to you, but also because it's financially smart. Well,
speaking of investors and doing things because they are financially
wise and all of that. You are at you know,
a pretty young age is successful entrepreneur already. So what's
(25:44):
been the biggest challenge to you though as an entrepreneur
starting your own business and has being a female entrepreneur
post any particular challenges or advantages? That's a great question.
I mean, as an entrepreneur, there are so many challenges, like,
oh god, like, how can I picked just one? UM?
I think that sometimes I get annoyed because people are
(26:07):
always like, well, what's you know, what's the biggest hardest
thing about being or they always asked me do you
have advice for other female entrepreneurs? And I'm like, how
about like, just do I have advice for entrepreneurs in general? UM,
because I first informast to give myself as an entrepreneur,
not a female entrepreneur UM. But yeah, I mean on
the flip side, there were definite challenges of pitching venture
(26:30):
capitalists UM, and we pitched more angel investors really so UM.
But been in front of a lot of different investors.
The majority of them are men. And you know, even
sometimes when UM, a male investor is saying this is
an amazing concept. I understand the concept, I understand the
(26:53):
product UM, but because it's not something that I would
be a customer as and something that I would wear,
I don't feel comfortable UM investing. And to me it's like,
you know, are they being sexist? I don't. I don't
think so. You know, they're not comfortable putting money into
something that they don't fully understand UM. So I can't
(27:16):
say that I blamed them, But at the same time
that that felt really difficult to to overcome because our
product is intrinsically UM female related, and so it was
very important to us to get in front of female
investors UM in order to raise the money that we needed.
(27:39):
And I mean in terms of the biggest challenges of
being an entrepreneur. Um, there's so many, there's so many
tangible things that that are challenges that I would say
for me personally, the biggest thing is just like trusting myself. UM.
And I think I've gave had a lot of confidence
(28:01):
over the years. I've been working on this business in
some form or another for about five or six years now,
and so I remember the beginning, you know, I would
meet with a lot of different people for advice, and
I would meet with someone on Monday and they would
say here's what you should do ABC and playing it
out for you. And then we meet with someone else
(28:22):
on Wednesday and they would say, you know what, Okay,
this is your road map to success. You do this
and this and this and that could be totally contradictory
to what the person told me on Monday, and just
because it was like the latest person who gave me advice,
I would be like, oh my god, totally you're right,
that's exactly what we're gonna do. And so I felt
myself just like bouncing around like a ping pong ball
(28:43):
um without having um real grounding to be able to
say like, no, I don't like that idea, like, I
don't think that's right. And so after having this experience
and UM, you know, being just like doing things and
seeing what works and seeing what doesn't on my own, UM,
(29:05):
it's been much easier for me to stand back and
take advice from people. UM. But then at the end
of the day, decide what I think and UM stay
true to that. And if someone tells me something, UM
in terms of advice, and you know, I don't like
it and I don't think it's the right thing to do,
then I'm able to say, you know what, no, I
don't think we should do that and not feel pressure
(29:27):
to um conform with what they say. And I think
to some degree that could be a very female characteristic
in the sense that you know, women were raised to
get a's and please the teacher and all of that,
although my dad was my teacher and I was a
little but um, you know, to to follow rules and
follow advice. UM. And so that's one of the biggest learnings.
(29:51):
I'd say that that I finally feel pretty confident that
I have UM. I have a very strong opinion about
how our business should the run and about how we
should grow, and certainly open to ideas and suggestions. UM.
But at the end of the day, you know, I
I feel good about my gut and about my my
(30:13):
own opinions. So that's something that I think took a
long time to develop, and it wasn't something that I
could just learn overnight. UM. And and that characteristic affected
you know, pretty much every decision that we had to make,
UM in the business as we are growing. Well, I
mean along those same lines in terms of trusting yourself
and relying on that internal drive. I'm really curious about
(30:36):
where your ambition and your drive came from, even from
a young age, back in your girl scout days, in
addition to what keeps you motivated today every day. I
don't know, I've always been UM, I guess like fiercely
independent and UM just like the notion of wanting to
(30:56):
do something that's a little different than the norm UM.
And I would say that probably goes back to my
parents again because they certainly didn't follow convention UM. And
so the notion of you know, working like a regular
job or working for someone else, UM, just so not
appealing to me. That and when I when I really
(31:21):
became enamored and also addicted to the idea of the
underwear and what it could do for women. UM. I
knew that I wanted to give it my best shot
and see if I could make it happen. Um And
So you know, every every year, I feel like the
business is a different business because um you know, we're
(31:42):
selling different products or we've got different people on our
team or a different size, and so that keeps it
that keeps it really interesting for me. Um And I
would say, you know, they're definitely good days and bad days,
but what really keeps me motivated is like thinking about
thinking about the future and thinking about like what's the
(32:06):
best thing that could happen to us? Um and And
definitely I've been accused of having like rose colored glasses
before um and, but I think any entrepreneur should have
rose colored glasses, right, Like like you anchor your mind
on like what are all of the good things that
are coming out that could happen, um and then you
(32:28):
work towards those and like that's how they come true.
So I'm a big fan of just like forgetting the negative.
You know, any anything that's not inspiring and motivating, just
don't think about it. Um And certainly, like you can't
ignore things, but just always having a positive lens on
(32:49):
everything that you're doing. I think has been incredibly helpful
for me to stay motivated, UM, because you are constantly
having on your mind the things that are exciting and
UM and happy. And then when those things come true
and you do something like the Victoria's Secret Perfect Body campaign,
(33:10):
our response to that UM or the women in Tech
bet a shoot, and then there's just there's both of
those instances, there is this outpouring of love and appreciation
and you it makes you realize how much what we're
doing does matter and and people do notice it, UM,
(33:30):
and it's providing a different a different voice to that conversation. UM.
And so that's really satisfying. And then you know, we're
always talking about all right, what's next, what can we
do next? Well, speaking of what's next, what is next
for dear Case, both in terms of products and also
sort of the background mission of almost normalizing the female
(33:54):
body as well as our bodily functions, if that makes sense, absolutely,
um So I think in two thousand Fourtune we really
figured out what um what works, you know, like we
really refined our voice and UM, so you know we're
gonna do more of the same in that aspect, We're
(34:14):
going to feature more women in Fetter shoots who we
admire because of who they are and what they do. UM.
I'm really excited to expand our yoga line. So we're
getting feedback from all of our customers on our first
collection UM and turning that around and coming out with
our collection two point of this year. UM. So that's
(34:38):
really exciting. And I get to be involved in you know,
all of that design and fittings and fabric sellection and
all of those things, UM and and a long the
lines of you know, normalizing, normalizing the female body and
making people comfortable with it. I think it's all about
providing things that start the conversation. UM. And it's not
(35:00):
only starting the conversation with men, but also UM with women.
And you know, there are some women who are super
comfortable talking about their period, and then there are other
women who you know, that's just not something that was
discussed in their house UM when they were growing up,
and so it's really uncomfortable and so UM for us,
you know, we're using humor, we're using emotions, UM, different
(35:24):
things that make it easier for people to relate and
when they see us bringing us bringing periods into you know,
the mainstream media or things like that. It really helps
to start those conversations. And the more people talk about
periods and the more people know about them, um, and
it's amazing. I love educating guys about periods. Sometimes they're
(35:45):
just totally clueless and I'm like, okay, so you have
no idea how this works, Like, let me tell you
because it's actually really interesting. Um. And that weird some
guys out, but other guys they're like, okay, cool, I'm down. Um.
So I think for us it's about out, you know,
starting those conversations. And we've got a bunch of fun
(36:05):
things upper sleeve that we're working on that I think
are going to get a lot of a lot of exposure.
I can't can't go into detail, um, but along the
lines of you know what it's what are the emotions?
Like what happens when you getting a p seriod? Like
what is it all about? Um? How does it make
you feel? What happened? Um? Funny stories things like that. Well,
(36:27):
we definitely look forward to seeing how all of that
develops in the conversations that deer Kate starts and obviously
to the products that you all, you know, continue to
create because I think it's high time that we also
have an alternative to the more mainstream, victorious secrets out
there that look at our bodies in our underwear in
(36:50):
different and more progressive kinds of ways. So, um, we're
we're big fans and wish you guys the best, or
I should I should say you ladies the best. So, Julie,
thank you so much for talking to us today. We
had a blast, and I know I learned so much
about how awesome they can be to be an entrepreneur,
(37:11):
and I know that we're grateful and a lot of
other ladies out there are so grateful for the products
that you and your Kate have put out. And it's
also inspiring, I'm sure to listeners as well to hear
how a stem field led to this unlikely startup. Um So,
this interview was exciting on a number of different levels
(37:33):
for us and for listeners who are interested in learning
more about Julie and dear Kate. You can head on
over to the dear Kate website, which is dear Kate's
plural dot com and if you see something you like,
dear Kate is offering stuff I've Never Told You listeners
off their first underwear purchase with the promo code stuff
(37:53):
mom Never told You, No spaces in between all one words,
stuff Mom Never told You. And in addition to checking
out all of the products and their ad campaigns that
they've had, they also have a great blog that you
should follow as well, they have fun social media for
you to check out. So be sure to head on
over to dear Kate's dot com and support some ladies
(38:14):
doing some really great and innovative and progressive business. And
now we want to hear from you. Do you have
any period underwear stories? You know you have some? You
know you have some stories. Email us moms Stuff at
how stuff works dot com. You can also tweet us
if it's a very short period story at mom Stuff Podcasts,
(38:34):
or messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple of
messages to share with you when we come right back
from a quick break. And now back to the show.
So we have a couple of letters here about our
comic book series, and I have a letter here from Virginia.
She says, I've been listening to Sminty for years and
(38:57):
love all the episodes, but women in comics Part two
was awesome. Listening to your episode was like listening to
someone list the faces of my life. I've been a
fan of comics ever since I was a kid and
gobbled up Bone and Calvin and Hobbes. In middle school
and high school, I really love manga, graphic novels, and
some very dark comic books like The Punisher and hell Boy.
Then in college it became more interested in web comics.
(39:19):
I was too poor to afford anything else and started
reading Wonder Woman since I thought that was important to
being a good feminist. I tried reading some other superhero comics,
but couldn't really get into them back then because either
you had to back read ten thousand comic books just
to understand the plot X Men, or suffered from women
in refrigerator syndrome everything else. Now, for the first time,
(39:40):
I've really been enjoying a whole mess of superhero comics,
quite a few of which you mentioned. I can't get
enough of Miss Marvel and Thor and back Girl is
pretty good too. There's a fractured fairy tales trend going
on now too, which I think would appeal to a
lot of female readers. Some good titles are Once Upon
a Time Machine, Fables, and Jim Henson's The Storyteller. In
the pie cast, you talked about how intimidating comic bookstores
(40:02):
can be, which I understand, but I've had only positive
experiences in stores. Store runners are getting the picture that
women read comics too. The store that I get my
subscription from now shout out to a Hall of Comics
in Southborough, Massachusetts, is the most organized comic bookstore I've
ever been in. Good labeling and attractive displays to a
world of difference in making a store more welcoming and
less intimidating to new readers. Whenever I go in, they
(40:24):
remember my name, nerd out with me over Saga and
Miss Marvel, and give excellent suggestions on what to read next.
The statistic you mentioned about the greater numbers of women
buying digital comics makes me kind of sad. While I'm
glad more women are reading comics, they might be missing
out on a fabulous local comic bookstore. Anyway. Thanks for
doing such an excellent podcast. I'm very excited about what's
(40:45):
happening in the comic book industry right now, and I
hope that many more women start writing and drawing comics
so that I'll always have great comics to read. So
thanks Virginia. Well, I've got a letter and a question
here from Julie, who writes, I'm a twenty three year
old female working on a sports blog. I'm the youngest
and only female of twenty three bloggers. The guys I
(41:06):
blog with no my real name, and we've all met
in person, so they're aware of my gender and it's
not something I'm trying to hide. However, my screen name
is gender neutral, and many commenters automatically assume that I'm
male due to the subject matter of our blog, and
the readership is skewed quite male. The internet seems to
be an equalizer at times, where everyone is treated the
same due to the lack of gender, racial, class, and
(41:28):
so on, when those details aren't provided. I've noticed, though,
that when those details are provided, they become the talking
points when that person speaks on common threads when they
differ from the white, middle aged, hetero male majority. It
seems a bit liberating when guys speak to me without
the usual hang ups that happen in real life. But
I'm worried that it's coming from not a platform of equality,
(41:51):
but that they assume I'm a male. Are there any
articles or studies examining this situation? Thanks, and I'm on
my way to listen through the whole Menty catalog. Great job.
Well to briefly answer your question, whether there are any
articles or studies examining gender equality on the Internet and
on social media, yes, there absolutely are, And in terms
(42:13):
of articles about how women are treated on the Internet,
particularly when their screen names and stuff let everyone know
that yes, they are women, a lot of times it
is pretty negative because a lot of times women are
harassed on the Internet simply by virtue of being women,
and especially if they express opinions on the internet. And
(42:38):
this I wanted to read this letter because I have
a feeling that a lot of our listeners experiences as well.
I know this comes up a lot for women and
gaming who if they're playing something like Xbox Live, will
choose a gender neutral user names so that they won't
be harassed. But Caroline, I'm wondering if it's almost better
(42:59):
some times to step out from behind gender neutrality, not
so much to put yourself as a target for harassment,
but to perhaps in doing so, slowly but surely normalize
(43:19):
gender online does that make sense at all? Yeah, I
mean I can honestly see it both ways. I can
understand why, like I personally would you know, encourage women
to do that, to step out from behind a neutral
screen name. But I also understand why someone choosing a
gender gender neutral screen name would do that, because you
(43:41):
want to be taken seriously and have value placed on
your writing for its own sake and people appreciating what
you have to say, um, without the added thought of
you know, what are they going to think of me
if I'm a woman, or how are they going to
respond differently to me? Or actually having them respond differently
to you. I mean it's hard for me to say.
(44:01):
You know, ideally, obviously we wouldn't have to hide behind
gender neutral names. But writers have been doing it. Writers
and scientists have been doing it forever. You know, women
have been using pen names or hiding behind their initials
quote unquote, hiding behind them forever so that they can
get published, so that they can have readership and make
an actual living. So I don't really know what to
(44:24):
say beyond I totally get it, and ideally we wouldn't
have to do that. Yeah, I will say, though I
would advise in this instance, Julie, if you're listening, if
you are a blogger and you want to build that
up as a career, um, I would advise using your
name as much as possible, if only to create your
footprint on the web, build your personal brand as a writer,
(44:49):
and particularly as as a woman writing about sports. So
that's something just to consider from more of a professional standpoint.
But if there are listeners who have advice about this
whole gender neutrality on the web pros and cons kind
of thing, we'd love to hear your input as well.
So Mom Stuff at how stuff Works again is our
email address, and if you want to get in touch
(45:12):
with us on social to find the links to all
of that, as well as links to all of our blogs,
videos and podcasts, including this one where it links. To
learn more about Julie and dear Kate, head on over
to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for moralness
(45:32):
and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff Works
dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Supports
dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And last time on Stuff I've Never
Told You, we talked about the history of panties or knickers,
depending on where you live, and today we're really excited
(00:25):
to talk to a panty entrepreneur. That's right, we are
talking to Julie Siegel today. She's the founder of dear
Kate and they specialize in some pretty special undergarments as
well as yoga pants. We can't forget the yoga pants,
that's right. Dear Kate started out, as we'll learn more
(00:46):
about from Julie, as a new kind of period underwear
for women, because for anyone listening who has a period,
we probably have all ruined so many pairs of under
aware because, let's face it, run in the middle underwear
is usually not designed to handle menstruation, which gave Julie
(01:09):
a brilliant idea well, so it helped for sure that
Julie herself has a background in a stem field, not
to mention business, so when she had to tackle this
issue of, like you said, regular underpants not being able
to handle our bodily functions as women. She was able
(01:30):
to combine her great business acumen with her scientific background
and create a brand new type of product for women
who you know, have regular body functions. That's right, Yeah,
periods in addition to things like urinarian continence, pelvic organ
pro lapse, yeast infections, cervical fluid, all things that we've
(01:50):
talked about on stuff Mom never told you. So we
hope that you enjoyed this conversation that we had with
Julie about Dear Kates as well as period underwear, feminism,
and what it's like to be an entrepreneur these days. Well, Julie,
first of all, thanks so much for joining us on
(02:11):
the podcast. Um, for our listeners, could you just introduce
yourself and who you are and what you do? Absolutely? Um. So,
I'm Julie Siegel and I'm the founder of Dear Kate,
And so Dear Kate is I start up and we
make a line of performance underwear, and more recently, we
just added yoga pants to our line, so we're super
(02:34):
pumped about that. Um. But the special thing about both
the underwear and the yoga pants is that they both
have our patent pending fabric lining in them, so it
is way better than your regular type of underwear or
pants because it has the special fabric in it. UM.
And I actually studied a chemical engineering in college, so
I got to help out in terms of like leading
(02:56):
the development of creating the fabric UM. So the inner
lining is actually moisture wicking and stain releasing, and then
the outer layer UM is protective and link resistant. So
basically it started in an entrepreneurship class and UM and
so we were like, you know, men's bodies and women's
bodies work differently, how come no one's making better underwear
(03:19):
for women? UM, So we came up with the idea
to make like the Wonder Woman pair of underwear that
you can wear during your period and be totally prepared
for anything. Well, Julie, what what inspired you to make
that switch from your earlier plans of working in marketing
for a pharmaceutical company or perhaps the chemical engineer in
(03:42):
the food industry to becoming a lingerie entrepreneur instead? Um? Yeah,
you know what. I was looking back at that interview
that I did UM when I was a freshman in college,
and I was like, wait, really, I said, I wanted
to do marketing for fun nautical company. I like, what
was I thinking? Like, I clearly didn't know myself then, Um,
(04:04):
but you were eighteen. Don't we all know ourselves when
we're when we're president Colley. Yeah, it's funny because I
was good at math and science in high school and
so my mom said you should be a chemical engineer.
They make a boatload of money. And UM. I was
like great, Um, that's that sounds good. UM. So I
(04:25):
majored in chemical engineering and and sort of like all
through my four years, I was like, Okay, what do
I do with this major? And so I had so
many different ideas, and you know, one of them was
creating new types of foods. I explored working like cosmetics industry. Um.
And then I was like, well, maybe I can go
into the marketing side for something that needs engineering, um,
(04:48):
like a pharmaceutical company for a brief time. Um. And
it wasn't until I took my entrepreneurship class um in
my junior spring where I was like, oh my gosh,
Like I felt like our product would make women's lives easier.
And so you know, I talked about underwear seven that semester.
All my friends were like this is amazing. You know,
(05:10):
no one else is making this kind of underwear. I
really want some of this. UM. So that's when I
was like, I want to do this for real, and
I can actually use my engineering degree doing something that
I really believe in. And that's such a fantastic example
too of how a STEM career can lead to something
(05:30):
that we probably wouldn't typically think of as a STEM career. UM.
But I also, in addition to um STEM, I also
wanted to ask about feminism because you've talked UM about
feminism and some interviews and how you are a feminist.
So how does that inform your work not only at
(05:51):
the deer k office, but also in marketing and even
in the venture capital world. Absolutely, UM, I yeah, I
think like at my core, I'm a feminist. It's something
that I've grown up with because my dad was a
huge feminist and UM, he actually stayed home and took
(06:11):
care of me when I was younger, and my mom
was the one who Um, she was a lawyer and
so she made the money. UM. And so I've always
seen from an early age, like the the fact that
my parents were role models of doing things non traditionally UM.
And so He very much always instilled in me that, um,
(06:32):
you know, I can do anything as well as men
can do it. Um. And you know, he would sometimes
go the other way and he's like, you can do
it better, and I'm like, well, wait a second, UM,
we're just trying to get to equality here. But it's
really something that nowadays when I see marketing or advertising
or situations that are non equal between men and women, UM,
(06:58):
because it's been so ingrained me from a young age,
I feel like it jumps out and it looks weird
and it feels weird, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Um.
Whereas you know, a feminism isn't a concept that you're
super familiar with. It just feels like regular society, like normal, um,
the status quo. And so I think that I've been
(07:20):
able to these situations from a lens of saying like
this doesn't feel equal to me, and what can we
do um to to strive towards equality for for men
and women, so that at the end of the day,
you know, we're all humans. At the office, we do
talk a lot about feminism and you know, men and
(07:41):
women's roles in society and how that's evolving and how
we can push that conversation forward, and what we do
and what we produce, how that adds to the conversation.
So about a year ago, we decided to name each
of our underwear collections after a woman in history, and
then we decided to feature women as our models, who
(08:05):
we admire because of who they are and what they
do and not only how they look. UM. So there's
usually some correlation between the person that we name the
collection after and then who our models are. So um.
For example, we named the LA collection after Ella Fitzgerald,
and then our model was Mary Beth Duran, who is
(08:27):
an independent musician. UM. So we feed agraph to her
singing in the studio in her underwear and recording things.
And it's it's like a breath of fresh air when
you see a lingerie campaign when there's a woman who's
not just standing there looking sexy with her mouth half open,
(08:47):
you know, like looking for approval from someone else, or
like she's not quite sure what she's doing. Um. Because
that's what we were seeing with all of these other
lingerie companies, and we were talking about in the off
is and I was like, you know, that's not aspirational
to me. Um, you know, I aspire to be someone
(09:08):
who's a mover and a shaker and a doer, and
he was really happy and confident, and so we decided
as much as possible to photograph our models doing things
that they love. UM. So we love the photoshoot of
Mary bath Um singing in our underwear and just having
a good time, and so we have done that with
(09:29):
a bunch of collections. Now we've had a florist who
owns her own UM floral boutique. We have athletes, and
then recently we did the Aida campaign, which was our
collection named after Ada Lovelace, the world's first computer programmer. UM.
(09:50):
And so for that campaign, we actually invited six women
to model for us who worked in tech and so
that was super fun because it was a chance for
us to showcase women who we admire because of what
they do. UM. And it's one of those things where like,
I don't know how to code, but I very much
(10:11):
appreciate that there are women who are experts at that
because I want someone of my gender represented at the table,
you know, when decisions are being made or actual systems
are being designed. It's so important for us to have
to have women there. And like when you think about it,
everything in our world is going digital, and so we
(10:31):
desperately want females to be a part of that and
a part of shaping how that's all implemented. And then
when it comes to raising money for our company, you know,
I've pitched so many different investors and talked to a
lot of different people. And one thing that I love
(10:52):
about our investors is, you know, they not only share
our goal of making money, but um, you know, equally
as importantly is pushing the envelope and pushing the agenda
forward UM for women. And so one thing that I
love about about having this greater mission besides making money
(11:14):
is how we're trying to be a role model for
other companies and and so you know, I think a
lot of apparel companies show their models portrayed in these
somewhat disempowering poses or um situations, and because they think
that that's what sells. And so if we're able to
(11:35):
show the opposite and show that actually women in Laingree
can be super smart and super empowered and that there's
so much more to women than just how we look
and be successful doing that, then that's kind of an
incentive for all of these companies that even if they're
just focused on making money, they could change the way
(11:58):
that they portrayed their models. Well. In speaking of models
and marketing, UM, we have to talk about the controversy
the deer Kate attracted during its campaign for the at
a collection which included, um, a photo spread with women
(12:19):
in tech, including past stuff I've never told you, guess
Audiburner of skill Crush, and it featured these women in
their underwear, and I mean much of the media coverage
focused on it's possible repercussions for women in tech, saying, oh, well,
these women want respecting the industry, why are they posing
in their underwear? And I mean that's kind of all
(12:39):
the conversation was focused on. And you had such a
great response to that, And I was also wondering what
you think it says more broadly about women body policing
and just this constant sexualization of the female body, whether
we are doing our work or not. Yeah, we were
(13:00):
getting shocked that it got so much press and so
much discussion, UM, because to us, it was an extension
of what we've done for months now in terms of
featuring non traditional models. UM. And you know, I know
that women attack is kind of a hot button subject
and there is a lot of discussion about it. UM
(13:23):
for good reason, because, UM, you know there are issues
with um sexism towards women in tech. UM. But I
didn't really expect so many people waving their hands and saying, WHOA,
this is crazy, UM, saying like I can't believe these
women would do this to pose in their underwear. I mean,
(13:44):
after everything that we're fighting for for women, UM, then
these men see these women in their underwear, and now
they're not going to take them seriously. They're not going
to take any women in tech seriously anymore. And to me,
that was just so such an on issue because if
you think about it, you know, what does that say
about our society. It's saying that, you know, we are
(14:07):
totally okay and perfectly fine with professional models being seen
in their underwear. UM. Nobody raised an eyebrow when we
featured athletes in their underwear, or a florist or a singer. UM.
But all of a sudden, when we featured women who
work in tech in their underwear, people got their panties
all on a bunch. Excuse the passing, UM, because they're
(14:29):
saying women in tech can't do that, and that women
tech have to address a certain way, they have to
behave a certain way in order to be taken seriously. Um.
But but in my mind, you know, women should be
taken seriously regardless of what they do and of what
we're wearing. Um. So, you know, what I'm wearing or
(14:49):
what somebody who works in tech is wearing has absolutely
zero reflection on their intelligence, their capability to do a
great job, um, you know, to create an innovative product.
And so I think it's really sad to think that
women are expected to censor what we wear and what
(15:10):
we do for fear of how that will cause men
to think about us. You know, I think if that's
actually what someone is saying, then we need to examine
that and look at how can we help these men
to see women as more than just objects and more
than just how they look, because that then that's that's
a bigger problem, or or more of a problem than um,
(15:31):
how women are behaving. So it brought up a lot
of interesting conversations that we didn't necessarily foresee. Um But
at the end of the day, I think it was
you know, we I loved a lot of the comments
and responses that we got positive comments as well, um
(15:51):
from a lot of people and our models who are
just wonderful and in commenting on it, and Auta in
particularly gave a bunch of great interviews and talking about
how listen people need to be comfortable, um with with
the notion that women are multifaceted, where complex, we're in
depth people, um, and we shouldn't be you know, boxed
(16:12):
into behaving a certain way or be defined, um by
our profession. And I also loved your response on Twitter
with the hashtag not controversial, which was just such a
perfect and sustinct way to diffuse it because it's like, oh, yeah,
that's really not controversial, nor should it be. Yeah no,
(16:33):
And um, one of my friends called me and she
was like, this is ridiculous. Like two days after the
Time magazine or Time online our article came out that
called the campaign controversial, and she was like, this is ridiculous.
Like I'm going to post a selfie of myself working
in my underwear and like hashtag it not controversial, like this,
(16:56):
I cannot stand this. And so she said that, and
then I was talking to other friends. They were like,
oh my gosh, I'm gonna do it too, and so
it became those larger movement. Um. So of course I've
posed in my underwear as well and hashtag and not controversial. Um.
So that was really fun to see so many women
who not only said that they supported us, but actually
(17:19):
posted selfies and underwear saying this is not a big deal. Well,
then that leads us to your response to the Victoria's
Secret Perfect Body campaign. And I'm interested in the response
that you received to this too, because this campaign featured
real world women with diverse bodies in their underwear as well.
So what was the thinking behind the response to the
(17:41):
Victoria's Secret campaign, which featured of course Victoria's Secret models
in their underwear with the banner perfect body, right, Um, yeah,
it's it's It's interesting because we heard about the Victoria's
Secret Perfect Body campaign, saw the photo, we talked about
it in the office, and within like two hours we
(18:03):
were like, we have to we have to produce an
alternative to this. Um, because I think it's sad that
we oftentimes see photos like that, the one like the
one that Victoria's Secret produced all the time, and because
they don't usually say the perfect body on top, we
(18:25):
just take it for granted, you know, and no one
thinks twice about it. But this time they took it
too far. I know that it was referencing the body
bra and not these women's actual physical boys. But you know,
that's a new one that no one's going to get
at the very first glance. You have to glance at
it twice to really see that. UM. So we feel
very uncomfortable with that message that it was sending and
(18:49):
thinking about it unless we unless we were provided with
other options. UM, it's it's sometimes not as jarring or
like not as um obvious how strong that message is.
And so by producing an alternative where they could be
(19:10):
juxtaposed side by side, UM, I think it made it
all the more clear, and um drove home the point
that there are so many different bodies, UM, and everybody
is valid and you know, worthwhile. So so that was
a really fun and very spontaneous campaign that we literally did.
(19:33):
We put together in like a day and a half
or two days and shot it, produced it, you know,
send an email out to hundreds of my friends and
just said, hey, like we want to provide a response
to this UM and and do you want to be
part of it? So we had ten women who were
as diverse as possible given a short turnaround time, I
(19:55):
recognized that, um, you can always do more to show university.
So so in general, the response was very positive to
the photo. We posted it on Facebook and didn't pay
to promote it or anything, so in terms of organic
share us on Facebook, it actually reached over one point
one million people and was shared I think it is
(20:18):
almost ten thousands, like nine thousand seven or eight hundred times,
just blew us away. So it was good, it was fun,
and I would say that the response was almost all positive.
You know, you're always gonna have some haters who say, oh,
like you know these bodies of various shapes and sizes, um,
the women are too obies or whatever. And then or
(20:39):
you have people who say, well, what about skinny people?
You know you're skinny shaming, and it's like, well, we
have a size two in there, and you know, we're
not saying that there's anything wrong with banks skinny. We're
saying love everyone, and and it's been it's been a
good brand exposure. UM. But I felt like I felt
(21:01):
really good doing it because we try to be as
inclusive as possible. UM, so I felt like we would
really you know, walk the walk in terms of like
a lot of other laundrie companies, they wouldn't be able
to post a response picture because they've traditionally, even if
they're not doing it as egregiously as Victoria's Secret is,
(21:23):
they traditionally only featured like super skinny white women, And
so we go out of our way to provide more diversity,
with the caveat that nothing is perfect and probably at
any point you can always add even more. UM. But
I felt like it's a nod to our intentions and
what we try to do and what we have done
(21:44):
in the past. So now, Julie, that we've talked about
the importance of body diversity and ad campaigns and your
own campaign featuring a diverse range of bodies, what how
do you think it is to provide products for a
wide range of bodies and how did you guys come
(22:05):
to do that at Dear Kate. Sure, Yeah, it's a
really it's a really good question, um, and something that
I find very interesting and perplexing. Actually, how segregated the
UM plus size clothing market is from smaller sizes. UM.
We called them miss ease sizes, and you know, When
(22:27):
we first started, we were super small, and so we
only offered I think the size extra small through extra large,
and so for us, we thought that was a big
size range UM and you know, have limited funds in
the beginning to produce inventory and UM. To be honest,
I was kind of intimidated by the notion of creating
(22:48):
a plus size line UM or adding those sizes, because
it wasn't as simple as just scaling our patterns and
making them bigger UM. But we needed to actually create
new patterns because it's very important to me that we
we have a really good fit and so so UM
(23:09):
we would have to work with a pattern maker to
have a separate UM fit model who would try everything
on and actually create new patterns for size one accent
above UM. So in the beginning, we just started out
with regular, extra small through extra large, and we had
a lot of requests from women who were larger saying,
(23:31):
you know, I love your idea, I love your concept,
and I would like to wear your underwear. And so
about a year and a half ago, I guess we said,
you know what, there's so much demand and we want
to be able to offer a wetter range of sizes.
UM so let's do it. Let's let's see what we
can do. And so we spent a lot of time
(23:53):
and did a lot of fittings to make sure that
we felt confident in um, the fit of our of
our plus size line, and we actually call them Queen
sizes UM, which is not just for fun. Like our
pattern maker UM she was she called the patterns missy
patterns and Queen size patterns and I was like, Oh,
(24:15):
that's cute, and she was like, no, that's what they're
called in the industry. And I was like, oh my gosh,
I love that so much. UM, let's call it the
Queen's Size collection. So we stuck with that, UM. And
you know, it's been really awesome since we since we
launched our larger sizes UM. They bring in a significant
amount of revenue and so UM, you know, from a
(24:38):
financial standpoint, it makes sense for us, in addition to
just the notion that we want to make our technology
and our underwear and our yoga pants available for as
many women as possible. UM. And I do know that,
you know, we can't say we have garments for every
woman because there are women who fall um, you know,
(24:58):
above or below our current size ranch offerings UM that
it is important to us that we we do what
we can UM and we do what makes sense financially. UM.
So it's it's fun when you're able to find something
that aligns with your goals of providing UM as many
(25:19):
sizes as possible. But then also when you can tell
your investors, hey, actually this makes sense and we should
be listening to these customers, not just because it's the
right thing to you, but also because it's financially smart. Well,
speaking of investors and doing things because they are financially
wise and all of that. You are at you know,
a pretty young age is successful entrepreneur already. So what's
(25:44):
been the biggest challenge to you though as an entrepreneur
starting your own business and has being a female entrepreneur
post any particular challenges or advantages? That's a great question.
I mean, as an entrepreneur, there are so many challenges, like,
oh god, like, how can I picked just one? UM?
I think that sometimes I get annoyed because people are
(26:07):
always like, well, what's you know, what's the biggest hardest
thing about being or they always asked me do you
have advice for other female entrepreneurs? And I'm like, how
about like, just do I have advice for entrepreneurs in general? UM,
because I first informast to give myself as an entrepreneur,
not a female entrepreneur UM. But yeah, I mean on
the flip side, there were definite challenges of pitching venture
(26:30):
capitalists UM, and we pitched more angel investors really so UM.
But been in front of a lot of different investors.
The majority of them are men. And you know, even
sometimes when UM, a male investor is saying this is
an amazing concept. I understand the concept, I understand the
(26:53):
product UM, but because it's not something that I would
be a customer as and something that I would wear,
I don't feel comfortable UM investing. And to me it's like,
you know, are they being sexist? I don't. I don't
think so. You know, they're not comfortable putting money into
something that they don't fully understand UM. So I can't
(27:16):
say that I blamed them, But at the same time
that that felt really difficult to to overcome because our
product is intrinsically UM female related, and so it was
very important to us to get in front of female
investors UM in order to raise the money that we needed.
(27:39):
And I mean in terms of the biggest challenges of
being an entrepreneur. Um, there's so many, there's so many
tangible things that that are challenges that I would say
for me personally, the biggest thing is just like trusting myself. UM.
And I think I've gave had a lot of confidence
(28:01):
over the years. I've been working on this business in
some form or another for about five or six years now,
and so I remember the beginning, you know, I would
meet with a lot of different people for advice, and
I would meet with someone on Monday and they would
say here's what you should do ABC and playing it
out for you. And then we meet with someone else
(28:22):
on Wednesday and they would say, you know what, Okay,
this is your road map to success. You do this
and this and this and that could be totally contradictory
to what the person told me on Monday, and just
because it was like the latest person who gave me advice,
I would be like, oh my god, totally you're right,
that's exactly what we're gonna do. And so I felt
myself just like bouncing around like a ping pong ball
(28:43):
um without having um real grounding to be able to
say like, no, I don't like that idea, like, I
don't think that's right. And so after having this experience
and UM, you know, being just like doing things and
seeing what works and seeing what doesn't on my own, UM,
(29:05):
it's been much easier for me to stand back and
take advice from people. UM. But then at the end
of the day, decide what I think and UM stay
true to that. And if someone tells me something, UM
in terms of advice, and you know, I don't like
it and I don't think it's the right thing to do,
then I'm able to say, you know what, no, I
don't think we should do that and not feel pressure
(29:27):
to um conform with what they say. And I think
to some degree that could be a very female characteristic
in the sense that you know, women were raised to
get a's and please the teacher and all of that,
although my dad was my teacher and I was a
little but um, you know, to to follow rules and
follow advice. UM. And so that's one of the biggest learnings.
(29:51):
I'd say that that I finally feel pretty confident that
I have UM. I have a very strong opinion about
how our business should the run and about how we
should grow, and certainly open to ideas and suggestions. UM.
But at the end of the day, you know, I
I feel good about my gut and about my my
(30:13):
own opinions. So that's something that I think took a
long time to develop, and it wasn't something that I
could just learn overnight. UM. And and that characteristic affected
you know, pretty much every decision that we had to make,
UM in the business as we are growing. Well, I
mean along those same lines in terms of trusting yourself
and relying on that internal drive. I'm really curious about
(30:36):
where your ambition and your drive came from, even from
a young age, back in your girl scout days, in
addition to what keeps you motivated today every day. I
don't know, I've always been UM, I guess like fiercely
independent and UM just like the notion of wanting to
(30:56):
do something that's a little different than the norm UM.
And I would say that probably goes back to my
parents again because they certainly didn't follow convention UM. And
so the notion of you know, working like a regular
job or working for someone else, UM, just so not
appealing to me. That and when I when I really
(31:21):
became enamored and also addicted to the idea of the
underwear and what it could do for women. UM. I
knew that I wanted to give it my best shot
and see if I could make it happen. Um And
So you know, every every year, I feel like the
business is a different business because um you know, we're
(31:42):
selling different products or we've got different people on our
team or a different size, and so that keeps it
that keeps it really interesting for me. Um And I
would say, you know, they're definitely good days and bad days,
but what really keeps me motivated is like thinking about
thinking about the future and thinking about like what's the
(32:06):
best thing that could happen to us? Um and And
definitely I've been accused of having like rose colored glasses
before um and, but I think any entrepreneur should have
rose colored glasses, right, Like like you anchor your mind
on like what are all of the good things that
are coming out that could happen, um and then you
(32:28):
work towards those and like that's how they come true.
So I'm a big fan of just like forgetting the negative.
You know, any anything that's not inspiring and motivating, just
don't think about it. Um And certainly, like you can't
ignore things, but just always having a positive lens on
(32:49):
everything that you're doing. I think has been incredibly helpful
for me to stay motivated, UM, because you are constantly
having on your mind the things that are exciting and
UM and happy. And then when those things come true
and you do something like the Victoria's Secret Perfect Body campaign,
(33:10):
our response to that UM or the women in Tech
bet a shoot, and then there's just there's both of
those instances, there is this outpouring of love and appreciation
and you it makes you realize how much what we're
doing does matter and and people do notice it, UM,
(33:30):
and it's providing a different a different voice to that conversation. UM.
And so that's really satisfying. And then you know, we're
always talking about all right, what's next, what can we
do next? Well, speaking of what's next, what is next
for dear Case, both in terms of products and also
sort of the background mission of almost normalizing the female
(33:54):
body as well as our bodily functions, if that makes sense, absolutely,
um So I think in two thousand Fourtune we really
figured out what um what works, you know, like we
really refined our voice and UM, so you know we're
gonna do more of the same in that aspect, We're
(34:14):
going to feature more women in Fetter shoots who we
admire because of who they are and what they do. UM.
I'm really excited to expand our yoga line. So we're
getting feedback from all of our customers on our first
collection UM and turning that around and coming out with
our collection two point of this year. UM. So that's
(34:38):
really exciting. And I get to be involved in you know,
all of that design and fittings and fabric sellection and
all of those things, UM and and a long the
lines of you know, normalizing, normalizing the female body and
making people comfortable with it. I think it's all about
providing things that start the conversation. UM. And it's not
(35:00):
only starting the conversation with men, but also UM with women.
And you know, there are some women who are super
comfortable talking about their period, and then there are other
women who you know, that's just not something that was
discussed in their house UM when they were growing up,
and so it's really uncomfortable and so UM for us,
you know, we're using humor, we're using emotions, UM, different
(35:24):
things that make it easier for people to relate and
when they see us bringing us bringing periods into you know,
the mainstream media or things like that. It really helps
to start those conversations. And the more people talk about
periods and the more people know about them, um, and
it's amazing. I love educating guys about periods. Sometimes they're
(35:45):
just totally clueless and I'm like, okay, so you have
no idea how this works, Like, let me tell you
because it's actually really interesting. Um. And that weird some
guys out, but other guys they're like, okay, cool, I'm down. Um.
So I think for us it's about out, you know,
starting those conversations. And we've got a bunch of fun
(36:05):
things upper sleeve that we're working on that I think
are going to get a lot of a lot of exposure.
I can't can't go into detail, um, but along the
lines of you know what it's what are the emotions?
Like what happens when you getting a p seriod? Like
what is it all about? Um? How does it make
you feel? What happened? Um? Funny stories things like that. Well,
(36:27):
we definitely look forward to seeing how all of that
develops in the conversations that deer Kate starts and obviously
to the products that you all, you know, continue to
create because I think it's high time that we also
have an alternative to the more mainstream, victorious secrets out
there that look at our bodies in our underwear in
(36:50):
different and more progressive kinds of ways. So, um, we're
we're big fans and wish you guys the best, or
I should I should say you ladies the best. So, Julie,
thank you so much for talking to us today. We
had a blast, and I know I learned so much
about how awesome they can be to be an entrepreneur,
(37:11):
and I know that we're grateful and a lot of
other ladies out there are so grateful for the products
that you and your Kate have put out. And it's
also inspiring, I'm sure to listeners as well to hear
how a stem field led to this unlikely startup. Um So,
this interview was exciting on a number of different levels
(37:33):
for us and for listeners who are interested in learning
more about Julie and dear Kate. You can head on
over to the dear Kate website, which is dear Kate's
plural dot com and if you see something you like,
dear Kate is offering stuff I've Never Told You listeners
off their first underwear purchase with the promo code stuff
(37:53):
mom Never told You, No spaces in between all one words,
stuff Mom Never told You. And in addition to checking
out all of the products and their ad campaigns that
they've had, they also have a great blog that you
should follow as well, they have fun social media for
you to check out. So be sure to head on
over to dear Kate's dot com and support some ladies
(38:14):
doing some really great and innovative and progressive business. And
now we want to hear from you. Do you have
any period underwear stories? You know you have some? You
know you have some stories. Email us moms Stuff at
how stuff works dot com. You can also tweet us
if it's a very short period story at mom Stuff Podcasts,
(38:34):
or messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple of
messages to share with you when we come right back
from a quick break. And now back to the show.
So we have a couple of letters here about our
comic book series, and I have a letter here from Virginia.
She says, I've been listening to Sminty for years and
(38:57):
love all the episodes, but women in comics Part two
was awesome. Listening to your episode was like listening to
someone list the faces of my life. I've been a
fan of comics ever since I was a kid and
gobbled up Bone and Calvin and Hobbes. In middle school
and high school, I really love manga, graphic novels, and
some very dark comic books like The Punisher and hell Boy.
Then in college it became more interested in web comics.
(39:19):
I was too poor to afford anything else and started
reading Wonder Woman since I thought that was important to
being a good feminist. I tried reading some other superhero comics,
but couldn't really get into them back then because either
you had to back read ten thousand comic books just
to understand the plot X Men, or suffered from women
in refrigerator syndrome everything else. Now, for the first time,
(39:40):
I've really been enjoying a whole mess of superhero comics,
quite a few of which you mentioned. I can't get
enough of Miss Marvel and Thor and back Girl is
pretty good too. There's a fractured fairy tales trend going
on now too, which I think would appeal to a
lot of female readers. Some good titles are Once Upon
a Time Machine, Fables, and Jim Henson's The Storyteller. In
the pie cast, you talked about how intimidating comic bookstores
(40:02):
can be, which I understand, but I've had only positive
experiences in stores. Store runners are getting the picture that
women read comics too. The store that I get my
subscription from now shout out to a Hall of Comics
in Southborough, Massachusetts, is the most organized comic bookstore I've
ever been in. Good labeling and attractive displays to a
world of difference in making a store more welcoming and
less intimidating to new readers. Whenever I go in, they
(40:24):
remember my name, nerd out with me over Saga and
Miss Marvel, and give excellent suggestions on what to read next.
The statistic you mentioned about the greater numbers of women
buying digital comics makes me kind of sad. While I'm
glad more women are reading comics, they might be missing
out on a fabulous local comic bookstore. Anyway. Thanks for
doing such an excellent podcast. I'm very excited about what's
(40:45):
happening in the comic book industry right now, and I
hope that many more women start writing and drawing comics
so that I'll always have great comics to read. So
thanks Virginia. Well, I've got a letter and a question
here from Julie, who writes, I'm a twenty three year
old female working on a sports blog. I'm the youngest
and only female of twenty three bloggers. The guys I
(41:06):
blog with no my real name, and we've all met
in person, so they're aware of my gender and it's
not something I'm trying to hide. However, my screen name
is gender neutral, and many commenters automatically assume that I'm
male due to the subject matter of our blog, and
the readership is skewed quite male. The internet seems to
be an equalizer at times, where everyone is treated the
same due to the lack of gender, racial, class, and
(41:28):
so on, when those details aren't provided. I've noticed, though,
that when those details are provided, they become the talking
points when that person speaks on common threads when they
differ from the white, middle aged, hetero male majority. It
seems a bit liberating when guys speak to me without
the usual hang ups that happen in real life. But
I'm worried that it's coming from not a platform of equality,
(41:51):
but that they assume I'm a male. Are there any
articles or studies examining this situation? Thanks, and I'm on
my way to listen through the whole Menty catalog. Great job.
Well to briefly answer your question, whether there are any
articles or studies examining gender equality on the Internet and
on social media, yes, there absolutely are, And in terms
(42:13):
of articles about how women are treated on the Internet,
particularly when their screen names and stuff let everyone know
that yes, they are women, a lot of times it
is pretty negative because a lot of times women are
harassed on the Internet simply by virtue of being women,
and especially if they express opinions on the internet. And
(42:38):
this I wanted to read this letter because I have
a feeling that a lot of our listeners experiences as well.
I know this comes up a lot for women and
gaming who if they're playing something like Xbox Live, will
choose a gender neutral user names so that they won't
be harassed. But Caroline, I'm wondering if it's almost better
(42:59):
some times to step out from behind gender neutrality, not
so much to put yourself as a target for harassment,
but to perhaps in doing so, slowly but surely normalize
(43:19):
gender online does that make sense at all? Yeah, I
mean I can honestly see it both ways. I can
understand why, like I personally would you know, encourage women
to do that, to step out from behind a neutral
screen name. But I also understand why someone choosing a
gender gender neutral screen name would do that, because you
(43:41):
want to be taken seriously and have value placed on
your writing for its own sake and people appreciating what
you have to say, um, without the added thought of
you know, what are they going to think of me
if I'm a woman, or how are they going to
respond differently to me? Or actually having them respond differently
to you. I mean it's hard for me to say.
(44:01):
You know, ideally, obviously we wouldn't have to hide behind
gender neutral names. But writers have been doing it. Writers
and scientists have been doing it forever. You know, women
have been using pen names or hiding behind their initials
quote unquote, hiding behind them forever so that they can
get published, so that they can have readership and make
an actual living. So I don't really know what to
(44:24):
say beyond I totally get it, and ideally we wouldn't
have to do that. Yeah, I will say, though I
would advise in this instance, Julie, if you're listening, if
you are a blogger and you want to build that
up as a career, um, I would advise using your
name as much as possible, if only to create your
footprint on the web, build your personal brand as a writer,
(44:49):
and particularly as as a woman writing about sports. So
that's something just to consider from more of a professional standpoint.
But if there are listeners who have advice about this
whole gender neutrality on the web pros and cons kind
of thing, we'd love to hear your input as well.
So Mom Stuff at how stuff Works again is our
email address, and if you want to get in touch
(45:12):
with us on social to find the links to all
of that, as well as links to all of our blogs,
videos and podcasts, including this one where it links. To
learn more about Julie and dear Kate, head on over
to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for moralness
(45:32):
and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff Works
dot com
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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Samantha McVey
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