 How are people feeling are you excited about this panel because I am I'm here today with two people that I admire a lot and I'm super excited about the two journeys that they are embarking on so I'd love us to start with like a little quick round of intros and Maybe some sort of thinking on what the products that you're launching are all about so why don't we start with you Valentina Hi everyone super excited to be here. It's my first time at slush and actually my first time presenting day on stage So thank you to everyone who came a year ago I started a company that is targeting the menstrual hygiene space so we saw an opportunity to create a better tampon that's safer for users and performs in a more effective way and More more importantly, we noticed that nine out of ten women globally experienced period pain Yet the only medication that they have available to them is ibuprofen Which was never tested on women was never designed for women, and it's not supposed to be taken every month Cool. Thank you. Yeah, Andrea. Hey everybody I am also new to Helsinki my first time at slush and I build a company that is meant to help people learn about something that very few people ever really learn about which is sexuality and pleasure I Grew up Filipino Catholic and the only thing I was ever taught about sex was not to have it at all Until I was married And I was also taught that I would go to hell if I were gay and all of these harmful things and in public school It was the same and right now on the internet especially it's either You know planned parenthood or medical websites like WebMD or porn hub and porn Like that is the space that is currently online and we fill the space in the middle So we make medically accurate information available to people globally about sexuality and pleasure to help them live their happy as healthy as lives Awesome. Thank you. So operating in this field. I'm super excited both as a consumer and also as an investor Obviously, I think it's sad that we haven't had more innovation in these fields for such a long time But I'm also excited about the new generation of companies that are coming and I think the two that you are running are The most exciting at the moment. So maybe you want to talk to us a bit about the upside of running a company in this field and Creating products that you yourself are a user of a sort of coming from your own stories So we're in the tempo manufacturing space Which means that I get to spend most of my days with a bunch of white 50-year-old men in suits Which typically would be considered to disadvantage But because I'm a 25 year old Eastern European woman with an accent I actually get to know a lot more about their industries and they would disclose to their counterparts So I'm never seen as a real fair competitor when I'm in the tempo manufacturing space when I'm in tempo manufacturing meetings And I always find that there's a interesting opportunity to actually dig really deep into the industry awesome So sex is actually really a huge industry and it's not niche It's not taboo and it's not it's it's actually something that I am told all the time Is like this new and upcoming thing and it's nuts to me It's first of all projected to be over a hundred billion dollars by 2026 Across you know the the market and right now big players like Amazon major platforms won't touch it So for me, it just seems like such a huge opportunity I actually started my career in another sexy space accounting software Which is also around like money Sex that's a good one. That's another shame spectrum, right and what because people have two shames money and sex, right and And So what is really awesome about the upside of being the space is we're in a blue ocean Which is you know, there's challenges to that of course and like I'm you know Valentina and I can talk all day about the advertising challenges the structural challenges the payments challenges There's challenges across the way, but these are also opportunities. Yeah, and I would say both of us We have customers who are obsessed with what we do we I don't struggle to recruit like people You know a lot of people who have experienced problems with sexuality know that how important it is to them and my mission is that Investing in this space and building a company in this space should be like any other wellness category It should be like yoga meditation any of that because it's massive. It's untapped. It's important and it's world-positive Yeah, no for sure. So the title of this panel we're talking about taboos. So what are some of these situations that you have sort of bumped into where it's been difficult or conversations have been awkward or people have been uninformed I Think initially when I was fundraising I noticed that I had about 15 minutes before the investors that I was speaking to started to feel extremely uncomfortable By the amount of times that I mentioned tampon or the word vaginal canal So I knew I had these 15 minutes in which I had to be super focused super concentrated And just relay my message before I was kicked out of the door But if I managed to have like a very stern face and talk about the financials and talk about the science behind my product I could get male investors through those 15 minutes of pain and shame and discomfort and Enter this new territory which was very interesting because I had a lot of questions that were not very informed I had questions around Why do you have a string on your tampon? I thought the tampon dissolves inside of your body. Why does someone need to take it out? But then at the same time I had a lot of like really honest and curious questions from male investors I really wanted to learn about my space in the category. So I think once you get through those 15 minutes of taboo and Not ready to talk about menstruation yet Then you enter this new space in which people are actually excited to learn about Women's health and women's bodies and how to make women's lives better Yeah, and this change I would say that the work that the menstrual reproductive Fertility spaces have done has pushed and made it possible for O-School to exist. So for example in 2016 One billion dollars had been invested already in femtech Which most of that was menstruation care fertility things that have to do with having babies because Actually like the way you look at society the only acceptable reason to have sex is to have babies obviously But the majority of the sex that all of us have is because it feels really good, right? So being in the pleasure space is harder. I would say than being in the fertility and like, you know Yes, right because and people investors everyone has tried to be like Andrew Just talk about you know talk about how to prevent pregnancy and STIs and stuff But I'm like we have not profits to do that what I wanted to help everyone in the world do is close the orgasm gap Right right now straight women are having the fewest orgasms of any other group. That's incredible And so as soon as you start talking about people enjoying sex it becomes taboo and That's for us the big barrier is that it's important and it's huge and With investors most of them haven't been educated about sex, too And so you get all of their insecurities their lack of education And so a lot of us a lot of times, you know, Polly Valentina and I are educating our investors like this You know, this is one of you know, this is what a tampon string does like that's a hilarious story But it's a big barrier because it's a waste of time. Yeah, you know while we could be just closing the deal We have to be like hey investor like let me educate you about basic anatomy And how do you go about finding investors that you know have like a bit of more understanding for the industry? So you don't need to go all the way back and do the heavy education piece, right? I don't think you really know until the first meeting you can't You can't really tell by an investor's brand or by who the partners there are whether they're going to understand your topic or not Or whether they're going to be sympathetic to it I think it's really in the first meeting that you find out. Okay, this person cares about the space or understands it Right. Yeah What's how have you found any ways to do you go to investor events and you say hey Like who do you know is the most open-minded person in her investor groups? Like no one puts on their angel list like I am you know I am this like I have this type of idea about sexuality like it's not something that people are open about Yeah, yeah, so usually it's like I'm not gonna tell you anything But you should talk to this investor and then usually they're open and it's word of mouth I also kind of tend to like investors who like blue oceans like frontier markets and For us that has been really helpful because in the end of the day We don't always get invited into the social impact and the wellness and health community as much as we should be Yeah, you know So maybe talk a bit about some of the tricks that you know how worked in these conversations So you mentioned coming back to the data and being very data-driven And I know in your education efforts you actually have Yeah, so I actually start literally every investor meeting I've ever done by holding up this And so everyone here can like identify what like this organ in the human body is but many Medical doctors can't and not a single Investor I've ever met has ever been able to correctly identify it and it's the clitoris It's a anatomical clitoris. This is the external part This is the whole thing and so I actually start every meeting with that just to just to eliminate the objection like everyone has sex Everyone knows everything most people can't identify the organ that is responsible who's solely responsible for pleasure And that's just you know that for a lot of people with the clitoris is Require them to have orgasms and what here did we know when we mapped out? It wasn't we haven't known about it So of course with this great thing and we put a man on the moon and invented the internet before we fully understood the clitoris Yeah, until 1998. Yeah, well an Australian doctor thought it'd be a good idea To know this organ in the human body So that's that's why we really further this education because we should know about this like this is an organ in the human Body that everyone should know about yeah All right, so I'd love to know a bit more about your personal journeys And what sort of drove you to start your own company and get to the place where you are today Like how did the idea come up and where did you get the? Sort of energy from or who encouraged you or yeah, maybe you want to start Valentina I take some pleasure in telling the story in how I started day because I think I'm the Most unusual founder type. I didn't go to an Ivy League or a Knox Beach University It didn't go to a private school. I didn't spend time in Private equity. I didn't work for a law firm In fact, I did all of the wrong things. I dropped out of high school and I was 16. I Did my university degree in only two years? Worked all kinds of odd jobs before I had the idea for for day And I don't have a medical background. I don't have a background in regulations or design engineering So I know very little by background of the areas in which I'm very actively involved in today So the way that I kind of had the idea for day is just by reading a bunch of research papers and being Inspired by the properties of industrial hemp, which is a plant that we use in in our product So the fibers of industrial hemp are actually more absorbent than cotton Which allows us to make the tampon smaller and the extract from the flower has analgesic and Anti-inflammatory properties. So when I found out those two things, I just connected them and had the idea for one product And this concept of learning things through medical journals and just going on the internet and finding information on Different areas in which you have curiosities Stuck with me as I was building day. So the first Tampon machine that we had the first prototypes that I made were in a 3d printed mode And I looked up needle punching as a technology and use it in my first prototype So I think we're super fortunate today despite all of the difficulties that women have fundraising or having in In in entrepreneurship. We are still super fortunate to live in the time where Someone with all of the wrong things in their background can become a founder and can start their own company and can Change the world in the way that they want to And you Andrea, what's your background? so I went from accounting software I built accounting software and I was then a venture partner at 500 startups and Kind of publicly I was you know traveling and investing and I had started this accounting software But privately I was really struggling with my sexuality because I just shared that I grew up Filipino Catholic I was in the closet sexually and I married young Because I wanted to be the good Filipino daughter, right? So I did all those things and so I was in this period of my life where I was changing my life And I was a visa I was you know in venture and so old school really started because I needed it I was googling for things and it was like ah like it's just porn or Planned Parenthood, right? Like it's it's really these two things and then when I started to like talk to 500 about investing in it Everyone was like no no no no no like You can't we can't really invest in that and so I started to hear a lot of don't do this I actually had people say you're gonna ruin your reputation start another company in the finance space Yeah, right and of course that was like so I was irresistible at that point So I started building side projects and I designed a prototype I got an outsourced team of engineers and then one of the former director of engineering's at WebMD Kind of saw me building this by myself and was like you need help and so I ended up having this amazing team come together and That is how we've kind of become this search really thinking about search because when you're in a shame category People don't post on Facebook like yo who knows about a rectal dysfunction or like yo Anyone dealing with vaginal dryness? They're not doing that They're going right to Google and and so we started to really develop our ability to reach people where they are But we reach it in their natural language because again like I what I was googling it was hard to know what to Google for right? And so I'm understanding exactly how people have these issues and exactly how to reach them and also not focusing too much on the super like like the super Liberated audiences of like LA San Francisco, New York like we really focus on Midwest in Relationship people globally because frankly Sexually liberated people in the world are the knit like that's niche, you know But going abroad like actually sexual shame is a massive Opportunity because I haven't met many people who don't have some aspect of that and who won't go through it And so that's how we decided to be the most trusted medically accurate brand and then sexual wellness and It really came from I wanted to I wanted another company in this place to do it But no one would fund it and so I was like let's build it. Yeah, let's do it And what are some of the tricks for how to market a service that it when it's hard to actually use the word You need to use in order to explain what it is. Oh sure. I'm sure we both have stories So yeah at this point in time like Facebook and Google are make up so much of the ad spend that's hard currently Virtually every sexual wellness company and I love Valentina's stories But you cannot put even the most conservative like me in this outfit with this clitoris is like bad too much Right too much and it doesn't matter. You have to learn all of the rules and the algorithms and We make up we our business is based on our ability to navigate these conservative lines I can speak all day, but how do you how do you do CBD infused tampons? Yeah, I Think it forces you to be creative when you can't rely on traditional channels When you can't just promote your posts on Instagram or Facebook you have to start your own like you did Start all of these like traditionally very unscalable things like go to events and Create events for your community and create lots of content for your community and Something that we do at days. We have three different events We have one which is called health for breakfast which we host in collaboration with large Corporates like Facebook Silicon Valley Bank. So we go to their offices and we give a Informational session on a hot topic in women's health. So whether it's the vaginal microbiome or how different forms of contraception affect your hormonal balance throughout the cycle the aim of the presentation is first to be utilitarian and provide Utility and meaning to our audience and second mention the day products and Educate people about them as well. So that's how we're kind of avoiding the fact that If we go on Instagram and Facebook and we over rely on those We're going to be at the mercy of algorithms and then have lots of ups and downs in our data and then investors own love that Yeah, well to that point a business built just on Facebook ads Isn't that interesting of a business anyways, frankly? And so even I see it as an opportunity to build better businesses than other D to C and other kind of consumer Spaces where everyone's just relying on that Facebook because the more you spend on Facebook the more expensive it comes And so by being created we actually lower the cost of acquisition in our space And so in that way stigma and shame or again like People think they're keeping us down, but they're making us stronger businesses overall And so for example for us, you know putting on ad for a sexual wellness product We don't have products yet. We plan to go into the marketplace and do that So we have a lot of data experimentation that we've done and just putting up an ad for a vibrator You're going after that very liberated market that I'm talking about It's very expensive over time to keep targeting that same group and try to sell them a vibrator The market of people who know they want a vibrator know they need one is actually quite small So we go a step above that and we're like hey Like would you like to increase the romance in your marriage? You know and we kind of go there, but the bidding and the competition for those are much lower. Yeah, and so again It's creativity. It's it's also Understanding our customers intent and problems and not just pushing them to try to you know Understand our space because again, it's not just about education It's about deeducation It's about unlearning things that people have been taught and you have to be a little sneaky to do that Yeah, frankly the other space that has this is finance is money Yeah, and so I learned a lot from that with accounting software. That's interesting You applied some of the learnings from that into this one. No one would share an article about bankruptcy. No Yeah, it's kind of the most uncomfortable conversation probably right and speaking of that What are some of the user responses that you have received because what you're doing is that you're giving people information about things that they hadn't You know been informed about and probably many of them aren't there for Grateful and excited and thankful and that's I think why you're creating these brands that are both built on trust and and also very generous Brands because of all the information and the sort of hand holding So I'd love to hear some about the the user love the reactions that you've been given if something stands out that you'd like to share Yeah, so we invest a lot in our own content, which is part of the wider mission of they to provide Meaningful women's health education. So In the same way in which many of us don't know what the clitoris looks like We have no idea what uterine fibroids is or what endometriosis is or what symptoms to look out for even though Those are conditions that affect one in 10 women and in the UK alone per year They cost 2.5 billion pounds So something that we hear a lot from our consumers is that they Once they read one article on vitals. This is our blog on your day.com They go down a rabbit hole of reading another and another and another and another And actually 25% of the people who learn about they learn about us because someone sent them a link Or someone told them about the content that we have on our website. So that's something we keep hearing Yeah, that's rewarding. What about you? Oh my gosh, so many first-time orgasms so many People overcoming relationship issues like that's the best part of I think our businesses is people really struggle alone Yes in these problems and when you make people feel less alone That's a life-changing thing And I could tell you that Someone who's never had an orgasm when they have it suddenly they're like What else is out there and they're like and then we help them with that we're like, oh, you know Suddenly they want to explore I mean 50 shades of gray came out, you know, which for better or for worse There were a lot of new inquiries new products new new new energy in that and so one of the things that we've created to help with this word of mouth problem that that I'm so proud of is if anyone's ever ordered a sandwich like at Whole Foods at a grocery store or a Deli and they've given you like a piece of paper and you have to say like what kind of sandwich you like like I don't like mayo. I like tomatoes, but no onions, right? We created that for orgasms. We created the orgasm order form We have multiple versions of it But the idea is like what if you could just say like hey It's like the left side in a counter-clockwise motion for this much time and then hand it to someone and We've seen like why is he even on that and and we've literally had t-pain the rapper fill it out Amazing and t-pain the rapper filled out our orgasm order form and he was like no one's ever asked me my favorite technique you know and It was like it was mind-blowing for the entire O-School team because we're like this This is someone who just bragged to us how many like people how much sexual experience he had but people Aren't asked about that and so we like to create experiences that transform that thinking and create conversation. Yeah awesome, I Would love to hear if you have any thoughts or advice for The next generation of entrepreneurs. They're thinking about starting companies within this field What are some of the things that you should think about prepare yourself for? remember Yeah, I think it's super exciting that you and I were able to become entrepreneurs because Imagine the next generation of women that are going and men that are going to be inspired and become entrepreneurs themselves But I wish I had a bit of a guidebook when I was starting around What are terms that you should expect in a term sheet and what are terms that you can? Accept in a term sheet and what you should push against or what is a shareholders agreement? And what are the terms that you should have in there and what not so things like Not giving rights of first refusal to your first investor just because they were your first investor Being really careful with the amount and type of people that you invite to your board particularly those that have a board seat because they will be with you forever and While your company scales, they may not scale at the speed at which you need them to being like knowing how to be a good manager knowing the importance of Investing in executive coaching early on so that was one of the things that I was really Pushed to do by one of my early investors who recommended that I get an executive coach and it's been really Transformational as a first-time founder having someone that you can rely on and having the source of know-how and Also, you and I have spoken about this a lot, but professional athletes are Expected to perform at the exact same level as entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs are expected to perform at the level of professional athletes, right? Like we get very little sleep. We Our brains are working all the time We solve these unsurmountable challenges and we climb mountains all day, but we don't have any forms of self-care like a Professional athlete may have three different coaches and a therapist and the masseuse and they know that part of the Capabilities to perform at the time of the competition is to rest to get in shape But I feel like we are running all the time. Yeah. Yeah, so that's something that I really I Try and practice more now and I wish I knew the importance of earlier That if you are going to perform at the level of professional athletes, you need to look after yourself as if you were one And the other one you hear a lot. I heard a lot and I wish I listened that advice You need to triple your timelines and triple your budgets for everything that you do and then maybe you'll be on time and on budget I'm such a fan of day and I think I have three pieces of advice. I think for all entrepreneurs and I It's great timing. I'm have a book coming out on December 3rd Yeah, tell us about sex tech revolution the future of sexual wellness And it's literally a love letter to all the next generation of entrepreneurs So they don't have to go through what we did which is like blindly rocking into a space and The three big things that I share with people is one create a community of support. I Being a second-time entrepreneur. I would say that was game-changing for me So I could call so many people who can like help navigate that and especially in sexual wellness You need to call people because if the rules aren't the same, right? And so, you know being able to call other founders of other companies that I really respect was like absolutely key And so I tell people make a community really like try to work for the best founder You know in the space first like I had the opportunity to co-found a company with someone who taught me so much and so I tell people that especially as a Immigrant, you know woman of color founder myself like I couldn't you know start full-time till I raised money It was just not possible for me and my my an early entrepreneurial kind of experiences helped unlock Oh school from for me So creating community is just so important for mental health and for just making it through this road The second thing I would say is really like focus on Like the customer acquisition problem is so huge in our space And so I meet so many amazing products that want to come to market in sexual wellness And I always say okay, like let's really figure out how you're gonna reach this market because it doesn't work Like selling makeup or fashion or a suitcase, you know There's so many things that people you know want to bring to market and this one is really unique And so just and I love helping entrepreneurs with that in this space because it for me is the most gratifying to you know I want to reach billions of people, you know There are billions of people around the world who need the products that we have and it's our job to really bring That to scale yeah, and the third one is exactly like what you said self-care and Focusing on your own like self-development is absolutely been key Making time for everything for meditation for yoga for pleasure, right? I always share that with people because it's important and we can oftentimes Get lost but the more that we invest in ourselves we bring that back to the movements and We need to be kind of the living examples of what we want to see in the world, which always doesn't happen but For for especially a company that is about sexual wellness We really preach a lot about you know self-care. Yeah, and I think in the fem tech space what I've seen so far I love that everybody's so generous with sharing contacts and taking meetings thinking our partnerships It definitely feels like a community and everybody's interested in kind of elevating each other and doing good things together We're kind of running out of time, but the last thing I wanted to ask and maybe we can keep it short Is like do your thing you're doing now? What are you most looking forward to bring me to the next generation of yeah teenagers out there that? Will grow up in a different world that you did the ability to not waste time energy Cognitive capacity to think about period pain or to think about oh has my tampon leaked Can you see my tampon string? You know growing up as a girl and having your first period is one of the most Brain-time-consuming experiences because you're always like worried and self-conscious and in pain What I'm really looking forward to is just our product giving women the chance to not have to think about these things and kind of Level out the playing field a little bit like before the three of us came out on stage We you know got our makeup done and our hair done and that takes a while like that takes 45 minutes that you know Men would typically spend maybe reading a book or on the phone With a business partner, so it's very similar with the way that we look after our health. It's so time-consuming. It's so Expensive and what I really want to achieve with day is Provide services to women that are affordable and convenient and easy and designed by someone who uses those same services as well Yeah, and you I'm excited about building a future where the de facto sex education for the whole world is not pornography Because right now the average exposure to porn is between nine and ten years old It's an average exposure to a mobile phone. Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with porn There are lots of things wrong with porn actually But the porn in itself is not the problem because there can be great porn out there, but it's not sex education That's like expecting young children to learn about you know Driving from Fast and the Furious movies. It's like not what we want Yeah, it's not reality and it's driving tons of shame and and mental health issues for an entire generation The second thing I would say nobody in this room including myself is not even ready for Gen Z I speak at colleges all over the United States one third of Gen Z Know someone who uses gender non-conforming pronouns We are going to have to really reshape even our industries because you know even talking about women's health Men's health like we should be calling it reproductive health of which I'm trying to shift because you know gender sexuality all these things are Changing yeah, and we I think have the opportunity to really be part of that change and support what the next generation is already leading Yes, we're running out of time, but we could talk for hours. I want to say massive Thank you to both of you for joining on stage today. Thank you for the luck