 Hi and welcome to School Puzzle, I'm your host Sarah and this is the show where we chat with everyday entrepreneurs about everything that goes into starting a new venture. Today's guest has made strides in pushing the boundaries of the sexual wellness industry. Eva Goykoche has started Lawn in 2018 after feeling frustrated with how outdated the family planning aisle had consistently become wherever she went. So she decided to converge her work experience and create a modern sexual wellness company that is built on quality, simplicity and inclusivity and her goal is to make intimacy better for all people. Welcome Eva, it is great to have you on the show. Thank you, it's good to be here. It's wonderful to be in your beautiful apartment. Thank you. I mean this is plexiglass. I am with our jail cell plexiglass. So Eva I've heard a lot about your company. I've investigated a lot. I've checked out some of the products. I would love to hear your story of why you decided to start this. Yeah I mean so without totally revealing my age I have been working for a very long time. I was a legislative aid in healthcare in my early 20s. I study marketing in New York actually so this is the second time I've lived in New York and I started working in marketing after I left politics and started working for a lot of startups and with really cool brands and my interest was like how can I work for a company that converges healthcare and sort of this startup consumer friendly facing brand and sexual wellness is extremely outdated. The same brands 100 years it's like it's so true. It's so boring on the aisle and I thought that this was something that for me made such an impact on many levels that that I decided to pursue it. I did not think that like it was an idea and then all of a sudden here we are but now here we are only two years later. Well I started working on 2015 but we launched in 2018. But still that's a huge success story and today you have many employees you sell in how many stores do you sell in? I think we're in like 140 stores but we're mostly D to C so we're mostly a consumer. Right because people can go to your site and buy all the goods there. Now with sexual wellness I feel like there's a lot of experimenting involved in that and what you exactly want to make, how to make it, the products. What's that process like because I imagine there's there's a lot of certifications you may need. There's a lot of experimenting you may need with different products to figure out what really needs to be updated. Yeah so the idea was launch with the basics and create a brand that matters to people with the basics. Okay so you you created the all of the different products. Now tell me about the process of of bringing that actually to market right? So like how do you market something like this? How do you stand out from other people? I mean the idea was first of all we did a really big survey to sort of test if this was even something that people wanted. Yeah and which is so good by the way. Yeah there was a lot of interesting feedback. Yeah and a lot of it was the same like people everywhere from 18 to 80 were in this survey men and women other, gay straight other and they all said the same thing which is like current brands are they're really explicit they're really misogynistic they're really outdated the packaging is just like so I thought look this is a viable idea and it's also a really emotional category so if you can create something that really matters to a person and you're creating these like really great basics you can sort of build a company off of it and the way that we differentiate ourselves by having that emotional connection and that brand equity. Yeah and I think I noticed that when I look at your social media and your marketing strategy you use the word misogynistic for other companies some companies right and that's actually one of the things that I was really inspired by how you kind of do put women first in many situations and it's like women are powerful and that is such a great thing to see in this industry because it's not something you normally see and and you know it's an outdated mindset. It's an outdated mindset and even like the joke around family planning I mean we put that on the site to sort of say it's called family planning like this is yeah we're in 2020 and I know we feel a little like we're going backwards but but I will say like we are gender inclusive our audience is almost split to the site and a lot of people are in relationships so we're really getting to both genders and then we're also inclusive of the gender spectrum because that's not something that really gets talked about. Right and that's on the site too by the way like that's one of the things that pop out and that also is not addressed in other sexual wellness companies. No they're really gendered and this idea it's not we always make like the common it's not about being so forward thinking in that the product isn't for a specific you know they are male condoms they are you know obviously yes but the idea is like sex and gender aren't always correlated. Totally so and your products actually speaking to that a lot of sexual wellness companies it'll be like a pink thing for a girl and a blue thing for a boy. Years are not like that. Years are very they look very luxurious. Tell me about designing packaging because that's a big part of branding as well is designing your logo designing the packaging how do you how did you start that. So it's interesting because Maud has gone through multiple lives yeah like when I first started it was blue it was like really blue um and the idea was for it to stand out on the shelf and as we started going through this process of like what do we really stand for I think the packaging started to become the thing that really cuts through the noise yeah by being neutral so many lives later we worked with the designer to create the symbols and then we worked with other designers who we still work with to create the packaging and but we basically do everything in-house like hand-in-hand with those people it's not like we worked with an agency to go through the whole process I created the brand book that's where I come from um so your professional career helped you launch this in what ways did that career help prepare you for a career in entrepreneurship well so it's funny I ended up getting my degree in organizational communication which I didn't I knew it mattered I care about how you know the structure of companies and sort of the communication and culture building but I didn't realize how much this would come into play later yeah and then understanding like healthcare policy and how you navigate your own wellness and so those things were really foundational and then I went on to help people build brands and I was like a really employed ever lane and I worked for an organic cosmetic company and so this marrying of product and like really what those products mean in someone's life especially when it's about wellness and health yeah um was what prepared me for this so why did you want to become an entrepreneur and take on all of that because in many ways it is easier working for someone else but it's so much more enjoyable working for yourself yeah I mean I think if I saw a company like mod in the world I would have gone to work there because when I left everlane the idea was like go work for a company that you believe in yeah um I believed in everlane but it was like I don't care about clothing I care about health and so uh I built a company I wanted to work for and like I enjoy being an entrepreneur and it's it's about people and some some days you feel like you want to throw your hands up and be like I don't know I'm also a person I think this idea of doing something that really matters that I could wake up every single day and do and I know that's super cliche to say like was what I wanted yeah and so I completely understand yeah once you have something you're so passionate about you can't even imagine going back and working for someone else and then that's the beauty of running your own business yeah yeah so why call it mod so mod was this play on modern uh mod means strength and battle it uh it also was kind of a nod to the show mod which was really it pushed the boundary at the time for reproductive rights yes and then also the real backstory is that I won't go into it too much but there was a prohibition era for condoms and all of this beautiful packaging came out of that time because they were trying to stay under the radar and there was a brand that wasn't by any means like the prettiest of the bunch but it was called three merry widows and if you open the packaging they're married windows three merry and their names are agnes becky and mabel and I was like I feel like mod would have been the fourth widow yeah totally it was all of those things launching your own business can be very expensive so how did you get the funding to launch something like this something question I know it's often the hardest part it was really hard yeah I I moved to New York for mod like I wanted to build mod I was ready I sold my house in LA I moved for mod and the idea was to start fundraising and build out network but I came really with no network to do that and um and it just started with one conversation that led to another and in 2017 I raised my first round of funding it was going to be 250,000 and we raised 550,000 wow congrats it's congrats but it also is incredibly like when you're talk full it's stressful but it's also if that's not the math you anticipated then yeah you are really diluting yourself so right um yeah tell me about that funding um it it's can be very overwhelming for people so where do you get it to like who do you talk to what do you do to make sure you're using the money in the right ways once you get it yeah I mean so for me there was a couple things that I did that really helps with the tone um the first one is I joined like an accelerator in the summer it wasn't an accelerator that takes equity which was good so I was just able to be around other entrepreneurs and ask a lot of questions when you say an accelerator what exactly is that an accelerator is usually a program um that will incubate a startup and give you access to an office or access to capital sometimes they take a percentage of the company um sort of to give you the tools you need to launch what were you feeling during this time well so it's interesting the night that we launched it was April 2nd 2018 and I stayed up all night with the developer I walked outside and there was snow on the ground with daffodils growing oh and so like permanently imprinted in my brain that I know was amazing um so there were a lot of sleepless nights I also really wanted to be committed to as typical as it sounds like a work-life balance and making sure that I wasn't just work because at some point in the middle of the night like your brain shuts off there's no way that you're useful anymore thinking constantly yeah yeah and you need to rest your body you need to rest your brain totally so we have good work-life balance now um we go home at 6 30 which is kind of unheard of in startup land and in new york yeah that's true but I think that ability to sort of maintain balance also goes back to the ethos of the company which is to make time for intimacy so what would you say is the most shocking thing about the sexual wellness industry that people don't normally expect I think one is they don't realize how few brands there are like really Trojan own 70 percent of the market no way yeah there are many in many you probably haven't heard of but really there are three major condom companies that everyone knows so it's Trojan directs and lifestyles okay yeah it's been totally owned by brands in a way that actually has this trickle down effect to how people feel about themselves essentially right and we compartmentalize it and we're uncomfortable and we don't have these conversations around the dinner table and I think like you know the point for us was to really create a brand that could be like a dinner table conversation you can talk to your teenager about sex you can talk to your partner you can be over 50 and not feel like suddenly you know sex isn't something that you should think about and I think that that's like mods really trying to yes we're a product company but we're also really trying to shift culture and communication and so what has been the most surprising thing that's happened in running your business so far oh god what's the most surprising thing I mean I think it's that if if things can go wrong they'll go wrong yeah you're like we have this supply chain figure that world COVID COVID it's a good one um yeah no I think like supply chain and just making sure that you like really cross your t's and dot your eyes and even then it doesn't ensure that everything's gonna go perfectly well so being resilient not taking it so seriously just being a malleable like person who can sort of go along with the stuff that's gonna take the punches and go um because failing is part of entrepreneurship and you just learn from failure move on if you get stuck on it that's when things don't do anything because you're stuck on it yeah and I think like when people want to raise money I always want to ask questions around like personally are they prepared because it is a lot of rejection I mean it's like being an entertainment like there's a ton of rejection so much rejection it's easy to maybe take personally um and so you kind of have to be ready to just be told no and you have to be able to have a very thick skin too and I think a lot of people need to understand that before they decide to start their business it's normally what weeds out people that won't succeed very quickly it's just is the the constant rejection I mean it's it's you get rejected more than you you get successful totally uh so it's like what would you say is the best way to deal with that as someone that isn't used to that rejection but still wants to start their own business and needs to get used to it I think I know I think there's a lot of myopia around like you think it's a good idea that doesn't mean that everybody else thinks it's a good idea and it's okay if they don't because if they thought it was a good idea it probably already somebody already came up with it right so that's one is like understanding that not everyone's gonna like your idea but also understanding who's the right fit to go to for funding who's the right fit it's like dating like who's the right fit to go to for funding and who's and are they gonna like you like put it get yourself outside of your your own head and say like is this the right match is this gonna be a reciprocal relationship so did you have an idea for mod and then after the survey you realize actually I think we should do a little bit differently in this direction or was what you had envisioned pretty much what the survey also told you it was what the survey also told us but I think that what I was saying earlier about going through iterations on the brand that was there were a lot of decisions that had to be made around like okay well the second version of mod was really colorful and that's sort of impossible to get to market because it's very expensive and then expensive because if you're printing all of these different colors if you're doing all of these different runs like it's so and then we realize well look if the if the whole thing is to be really universal and this company that stands for all people like color does matter yeah and maybe it's not in showing every color that's gonna bring them into the whole maybe it's in being more simple so those things were happening sort of at the same time the other thing I was gonna say is business model like unit economics which nobody really yeah tell me about stay here not a very exciting topic but it's a super important topic it's an important topic because not every company should fundraise because they don't have the unit economics to do it um or the business model to do it so it's like okay so now you have a thick skin you think it's a good idea yeah is it actually a good idea on paper yeah is the math there right and that's really important actually speaking of which was there an aha moment for you there was not was it so between leaving everlane and I started working for for other brands like I was I was helping them build their brands get their websites off the ground and I worked with this designer duo we started this little wash company it was great it still kind of exists um and they started talking about sexual wellness and I was like oh my god this is the idea I've been waiting my entire career for because this matters so much to me yeah I come from a state that's 48 like on the list of usage for condoms I have you know there are many teenage pregnancies in my family um and so for me it was this really like well moment of I want to do this do you want to do this and not everybody was on board no you know not everybody wanted to sell condoms and tell their grandma that's what they did my very catholic grandma is now okay with it but took a while um so yeah if there was a light bulb moment and it was a conversation and it was at the time it seems like so far out of reach and so impossible that it just was a conversation yep and that's normally where it starts yeah do you have any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs yeah I mean do your homework and yeah and you know maybe you don't want to take the Harvard course but there are definitely like courses online they're Coursera is a good resource there's like other resources where you can start to learn more about what you're building and google it I go great you can learn so much on youtube these days how long it took to get off the ground was really my it was the time learning it was a time educating myself and getting told no and being poor for a long time well I still don't make much money that's another big like money just so you know you're not going to make a lot of money if you're a startup founder yeah I'm going to do a little household with the husband of 10 years thank you Ian for like helping us pay the rent yeah I mean every once you finally get there and you achieve your dreams of this company every um every tier you shed every challenge every second second guess it's all worth it because there's nothing like being so pleased with what you built so it's been wonderful having you on the show Eva thank you so much for joining us and thank you to everyone out there who tuned in today and you want to learn more about mod visit get mod calm follow them on instagram and get mod and that is all for this edition of school puzzle you can keep up with all of our episodes on youtube apple podcast google podcast or whatever you screen and download podcast and if you do like what you hear today please consider leaving a review share it with your friends and subscribe to our show we'll see you next time bye