Speaker 1: Welcome back to she Pivots. I'm Amanda Calabrese.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to she Pivots, the podcast where women share
Speaker 2: bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman.
Speaker 2: Picture a middle school aged girl at a swim meet
Speaker 2: in a bathing suit, preparing for the big race. Her
Speaker 2: period just started that morning, She's never used a tampon,
Speaker 2: and the team captain tells her figure it out in
Speaker 2: the next thirty minutes or you're off the relay. That
Speaker 2: girl grew up to re engineer the tampon for the
Speaker 2: first time in almost one hundred years. Amanda Calabreeze is
Speaker 2: a nine time national champion in life saving, a Stanford
Speaker 2: Train product design engineer, and a co founder and of Sequel,
Speaker 2: the company behind the first spiral tampon created to fulfill
Speaker 2: a very real need for female athletes. Today, we'll talk
Speaker 2: with Amanda about how her experience as an elite athlete
Speaker 2: inspired her to rethink something as seemingly simple as a tampon. Now,
Speaker 2: SEQL is in locker rooms and stadiums from middle schools
Speaker 2: to Oudyfield and Yankee Stadium. This is Amanda Calabrese, and
Speaker 2: this is how she pivots.
Speaker 3: What is your name and what do you do?
Speaker 1: My name is Amanda Calabrese, and I am the co
Speaker 1: founder and CMO of Sequel.
Speaker 2: Tell us about little Amanda, Like, what was your family like?
Speaker 2: We've established that your dad is like the eye doctor
Speaker 2: of town. Yes, big lifeguard family, but like, what was
Speaker 2: your family like?
Speaker 3: Like, tell us all about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I grew up in East Hampton, New York, which
Speaker 1: is very known as the hotspots summer destination in New York.
Speaker 1: But I think I didn't really appreciate how idylic it
Speaker 1: was until I left. But I had the most idyllic
Speaker 1: beach childhood. I think I blacked out the winters when
Speaker 1: it was cold and I had to go to the
Speaker 1: pool and go to swimming and things like that. But
Speaker 1: we spent almost every day at the beach, and my
Speaker 1: dad lifelong surfer. My mom loves the ocean, loves the beach.
Speaker 1: My parents, they've had generations of family on the eastern
Speaker 1: end of Long Island, and so it's a very family
Speaker 1: community vibe. Little Avanda couldn't get out of the water.
Speaker 1: I wanted to surf like my dad so badly. My
Speaker 1: dad is my hero was my hero, and so in
Speaker 1: order to be able to learn to surf and get
Speaker 1: into the ocean, I had to negotiate with my mom
Speaker 1: on that one to get surfing as young as possible,
Speaker 1: and so to do that it was spending long hours
Speaker 1: at the beach, learning how to swim, getting comfortable in
Speaker 1: the ocean, being a junior lifeguard. Those are some of
Speaker 1: my earliest memories.
Speaker 2: The influx in the summer, I feel like, is so
Speaker 2: defining of the town, of the region.
Speaker 3: Was it a big factor for you or not? Really?
Speaker 3: When you are a.
Speaker 1: Year round resident any Hampton, summer is everything. The spring
Speaker 1: is this opening up period, and it's this excitement and
Speaker 1: it's building week after week until you get to Memorialdy
Speaker 1: weekend and then all of a sudden, it's summer. It
Speaker 1: switches on and it's busy, it's exciting, the weather's nice,
Speaker 1: there's all these interesting, amazing people coming in from around
Speaker 1: the world. It's like a light switches and we go
Speaker 1: from sleepy town to the center of the world. You
Speaker 1: could say, for a few weeks of the year.
Speaker 3: Do you have siblings.
Speaker 2: Have a younger brother, is he also into life guarding
Speaker 2: and swimming and surfing.
Speaker 1: We're very different. But he was a lifeguard. He swam
Speaker 1: his whole life. That is something that is so core
Speaker 1: to our family, our identity. It's the water, the ocean.
Speaker 1: He's an ai engineer, he went to MIT. He's very smart,
Speaker 1: very cerebral, and he did all of those things. But
Speaker 1: now he's very focused on his work. When I think
Speaker 1: about the eastern end of Long Island and the family,
Speaker 1: I'm like air quoting right now. It's the community that
Speaker 1: I was born into. It's this community of lifeguards, community
Speaker 1: around my dad being the eye doctor in town and
Speaker 1: everybody knowing him and him walking down the street and
Speaker 1: people being.
Speaker 3: Like doctor calbaryes, how are you?
Speaker 1: And I didn't realize how lucky I was to be
Speaker 1: born into a family that made an impact in the.
Speaker 3: Place in which they resided.
Speaker 2: You went to Stanford, so you obviously did very well
Speaker 2: in school. Was being smart, being good at school? Being driven?
Speaker 2: Were those things that came naturally to you?
Speaker 1: I was always very ambitious and pushed myself very hard.
Speaker 1: My mom was always the one to say, I am
Speaker 1: not the one pushing you. As long as you do
Speaker 1: your very best, that is good enough for me. And
Speaker 1: if your very best is a getting second place, if
Speaker 1: it's getting tenth place, if it's doing your absolute best,
Speaker 1: and that's good enough for me.
Speaker 3: But I was always pushing myself.
Speaker 1: I think at an early age I had these really
Speaker 1: amazing experiences that opened up my world and showed me
Speaker 1: that there was a huge world outside of East Hampton.
Speaker 1: I competed for this competition. It was for like I
Speaker 1: think it was like eleven twelve year olds bringing them
Speaker 1: to Italy.
Speaker 3: It was kids of Italian heritage.
Speaker 1: You could be from the US or from Canada, from
Speaker 1: all over the world bringing back this Italian I asked
Speaker 1: for to compete as kids in I was competing in
Speaker 1: track and I met all these kids from all over
Speaker 1: the world, learned about their lives and what they were
Speaker 1: doing where they were from, and that I think that
Speaker 1: changed everything for me. I was like, you know, I
Speaker 1: love where I grew up and this is amazing, but
Speaker 1: there's a whole world out there that I need to
Speaker 1: see and I need to work as hard as I
Speaker 1: possibly can, whether that be in school, in sports, anything
Speaker 1: that I do, so that I can explore it and
Speaker 1: have these opportunities.
Speaker 2: You joined the National Life Saving team while you were
Speaker 2: still in high school, which is not a sport that
Speaker 2: a lot of people know anything about, including me, until
Speaker 2: we did this research.
Speaker 3: So how were you exposed to it?
Speaker 2: Like did you say as soon as you started lifeguarding,
Speaker 2: You're like, I want to be on the national team?
Speaker 3: Like was that the goal? Was it other sports?
Speaker 2: Did you think you were going to be a professional
Speaker 2: athlete in a variety of different sports.
Speaker 1: I think that aspirations like these always come from a
Speaker 1: role model.
Speaker 3: You hear it.
Speaker 1: I went athletes to interviews, They're like, I looked up
Speaker 1: to this athlete. Or you hear soccer players, they're like
Speaker 1: the ninety nine ers, right, they always have. I hear
Speaker 1: a lot about nine. Everybody has that significant role model.
Speaker 1: And for me, I was lucky enough that my role
Speaker 1: model was spending time and investing in me. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like I'm watching her on TV or I had a
Speaker 1: direct relationship with my role model. And when I was
Speaker 1: very young, she was my babysitter, and then when I
Speaker 1: became older, she was my junior lifeguard instructor. So I
Speaker 1: joined the Junior Life Card program in East Hampton when
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: Seven years old.
Speaker 1: It started started at nine at the time, but I
Speaker 1: kind of hung alongside the big kids, ran along them
Speaker 1: at the beach. Wanted to be a part of it
Speaker 1: so badly so that I could go and learn to
Speaker 1: surf with my dad.
Speaker 3: That was the deal I made with my mom.
Speaker 1: If you join the Junior Life Card program, if you
Speaker 1: become strong in the ocean, you can go surf with dad.
Speaker 1: But my junior life art instructor was this incredible woman
Speaker 1: named Emily, and she was competing as a lifeguard, and
Speaker 1: she was training for Nationals, and she was training for
Speaker 1: this event called Beach Flags, which was ultimately the event
Speaker 1: that I did. She had consistently competed and like almost
Speaker 1: one almost got there. And I remember the year that
Speaker 1: I was in her junior lifeguard group. She was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to win the national championships this year, and
Speaker 1: so are you. You're eleven, You're going to compete in
Speaker 1: the nine ten eleven group, the C group. I'm going
Speaker 1: to bring you to Nationals with me in Florida and
Speaker 1: we're both gonna win. I'm like eleven years old, sprinting
Speaker 1: up behind her on these sand dunes, trying to keep
Speaker 1: up with her. I mean, obviously I couldn't. She was
Speaker 1: so strong and I just remember her being like the
Speaker 1: strongest woman I knew. And when we went to Florida together,
Speaker 1: I competed first. She was coaching me on the sidelines,
Speaker 1: probably the only eleven year old that had a coach
Speaker 1: screaming while she's competing.
Speaker 3: I won, and then three.
Speaker 1: Days later she competed one Open Nationals for the first
Speaker 1: time and was asked to be on the US national team.
Speaker 1: She was invited to compete at a World Cup event
Speaker 1: in Japan. I watched her go to that event, and
Speaker 1: then when she came back, she gave me a piece
Speaker 1: of like I think it was like Australia national team gear,
Speaker 1: and from that moment I was like, this is the
Speaker 1: goal that I need to accomplish.
Speaker 3: How did you train for it? Like, what does training
Speaker 3: look like?
Speaker 2: Also, for those who are not in this room, you're
Speaker 2: not the tallest of athletes.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, And that was quite advantageous to
Speaker 1: my event. Interest in life saving it started in Australia
Speaker 1: as a way to keep their skills at a prime
Speaker 1: and then also keep them interested in lifeguarding. In Australia,
Speaker 1: they have different clubs at different beaches and the different
Speaker 1: beaches would compete against each other, almost like a track
Speaker 1: me Right, you go to the beach and there's beach
Speaker 1: events land events, much like track and field. You would
Speaker 1: put your skills to the test, and it's like a
Speaker 1: placement kind of thing, so there's no time. It's just
Speaker 1: whoever gets out around Buoi's or and in the fastest,
Speaker 1: and then whoever's the fastest on the sand. The thing
Speaker 1: that I loved the most about it, and the thing
Speaker 1: that keeps your skills sharp as a lifeguard, is that
Speaker 1: you never know what the conditions are going to look
Speaker 1: like when you show up at the beach. I've had
Speaker 1: competitions where we're on the Adriatic and it's completely flat,
Speaker 1: and that was in Italy for the World Championships in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. I've had competitions where we flew all
Speaker 1: the way to South Africa.
Speaker 3: We were on the beach in Durban.
Speaker 1: It was like six to eight feet ten foot sets
Speaker 1: and we were breaking paddle boards in half. So some
Speaker 1: of the events can be you know, swimming in the
Speaker 1: open water around booys, and then in there's paddle board races,
Speaker 1: which is something that I did and trained a lot for,
Speaker 1: so you're paddling a board out and around Bowie's and in,
Speaker 1: and then you know you could be in last place,
Speaker 1: you could be in fifth place. You could catch a
Speaker 1: massive wave because your skills in the surf are the best,
Speaker 1: and you were able to seize the moment and catch
Speaker 1: the wave, you could speed ahead and win. My event
Speaker 1: is the least environmentally dependent, but the most I would
Speaker 1: say tactical. It's called beach flags. And what you do
Speaker 1: is line up facing one direction on the sand kind
Speaker 1: of pronated, with your hands on top of each other
Speaker 1: and your elbows out. And it's a reaction test. So
Speaker 1: you're a lifeguard, you're on the lifeguard stand, you say
Speaker 1: heads up, you have to react and get ready to
Speaker 1: make a rescue. In beach lags, they say you're now
Speaker 1: in the hands of the starter, heads down, and then
Speaker 1: they blow a whistle and you have to get up,
Speaker 1: turn around, and run twenty five meters in the opposite
Speaker 1: direction as fast as you possibly can, dive and get
Speaker 1: a stick, and if you don't get one, you're out.
Speaker 1: And so the tactical planning and nature of it comes
Speaker 1: from knowing who's next to you, knowing how far you
Speaker 1: have to run, conserving energy. Sometimes you're doing twelve rounds
Speaker 1: until a final. Sometimes you're doing twenty and we go
Speaker 1: one by one until you are head to head in
Speaker 1: the finals against one other woman and you're almost rugby
Speaker 1: diving for the final stick.
Speaker 3: WHOA wild.
Speaker 2: When you started lifeguarding, your goal was to be able
Speaker 2: to surf with your dad. I mean, did you end
Speaker 2: up surfing at all? Or did you just sort of
Speaker 2: day lifeguarding.
Speaker 1: Surfing is still a really important part of my life,
Speaker 1: and yes, that was why I started the junior lifeguard program,
Speaker 1: and it fulfilled all those needs for me. I was
Speaker 1: able to learn to surf, surf with my dad, have
Speaker 1: that be something that was outside of competing. That's what
Speaker 1: it became for me. A lot of my friends growing
Speaker 1: up were competing and surfing, and my parents were very
Speaker 1: firm that if I was going to put my all
Speaker 1: into making the national team competing in life saving, I
Speaker 1: needed something that wasn't competitive that I just did for
Speaker 1: the joy of it.
Speaker 2: Did you compete in other sports as well or they
Speaker 2: were like focus on one.
Speaker 1: I competed in all of the middle school high school sports.
Speaker 1: I swam all year round, I played field hockey, I
Speaker 1: ran track, But all of those things were in service
Speaker 1: of achieving this overarching goal of doing what Emily did
Speaker 1: and making the national team.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just to foreshadow a little bit here, the community
Speaker 2: nonprofit program that we stood up at Gotham is called
Speaker 2: Keep Her in the Game, specifically to keep girls in
Speaker 2: whatever sport they're playing as their bodies change. So agees
Speaker 2: like eight to fourteen, because that statistically is the age
Speaker 2: where girls bodies change. They don't know how to handle it.
Speaker 2: There's not coaching support because our coaches don't know how
Speaker 2: to handle it, and so girls drop out. You clearly
Speaker 2: didn't drop out, but how did you manage that with
Speaker 2: your body changing and sticking in the same sport you
Speaker 2: had been in when suddenly your body might be doing
Speaker 2: something different than it had before.
Speaker 1: It's really hard to grow up in a sport where
Speaker 1: there's so much focus on your body because you're wearing
Speaker 1: a bikini. I was eleven years old wearing a two
Speaker 1: piece bathing suit competing at the National Championships. When I
Speaker 1: made the national team, I was sixteen wearing a red,
Speaker 1: white and blue bikini competing at the World Championships. I
Speaker 1: distinctly remember going through those changes of you know, wanting
Speaker 1: to wear my uniform, but not feeling comfortable in my body,
Speaker 1: you know, getting my period for the first time at
Speaker 1: a swim meet, and not even knowing how to use
Speaker 1: a tampon.
Speaker 3: Not knowing really what that was. Knowing that it.
Speaker 1: Existed, of course, but it was a tampon conceptually that
Speaker 1: was never something that I was going to need to use.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, I'm in a bathing
Speaker 1: suit and the team captain is saying, if you don't
Speaker 1: figure out how to put a tampon in in the
Speaker 1: next thirty minutes, you're off the relay and we need
Speaker 1: you for the relay. So there's that learning how to
Speaker 1: have the tools to manage the things that are happening
Speaker 1: mean to you as your body is changing and going
Speaker 1: through puberty. But then I think body image was something
Speaker 1: that was so prevalent for me, particularly in the sport
Speaker 1: that I was in, and that was when all of
Speaker 1: us started having an Instagram. It was amazing because I
Speaker 1: could follow my idols that lived in Australia who were
Speaker 1: competing professionally. That's the only place in the world where
Speaker 1: there is really a robust semi professional system. I could
Speaker 1: follow them on Instagram from across the world. But I
Speaker 1: was looking at these developed women who had ridiculous six packs.
Speaker 1: I mean, they looked amazing. But I was sixteen, and
Speaker 1: I was like, should I look like that? Can I
Speaker 1: wear a two peace bathing suit? If I don't look
Speaker 1: like that? Because I'm my body is changing and going
Speaker 1: through puberty and I don't look like that.
Speaker 2: So was managing the different aspects, Like I imagine you probably
Speaker 2: had to get a more supportive top to some degree.
Speaker 2: You've described the coach saying that you had to use
Speaker 2: a tampon immediately, but like talking about how to manage
Speaker 2: when you got your period if you were in white
Speaker 2: bathing suits, Like, was that something that was openly discussed
Speaker 2: among other athletes, among coaches, like anywhere in the field.
Speaker 2: Everyone had to figure it out on their own.
Speaker 1: Definitely not. It always came from the team captain. It
Speaker 1: always came from the older girl on the team. This
Speaker 1: is something that my co founder, Greta and I talk
Speaker 1: a lot about with our company now, and it's that
Speaker 1: a lot of the information that you get as a
Speaker 1: young girl, particularly in sports, is passed down from those
Speaker 1: that are in leadership positions around you, and it's not
Speaker 1: the coach. It's not the systems around you. It's girls
Speaker 1: in the locker room helping out other girls whispering. And
Speaker 1: that's what it was for me. I mean, I'm so
Speaker 1: thankful that my mom was so involved and none of
Speaker 1: these conversations were difficult for her. But I remember teaching
Speaker 1: younger girls in my swim team a tampon. I remember
Speaker 1: showing up at nationals every year for years in a
Speaker 1: row and having my period and it wasn't even oh.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna leak in my bathing suit.
Speaker 1: It was I'm distracted because I'm thinking about the fact
Speaker 1: that I'm wearing a tampon and I have my period,
Speaker 1: and I have cramps, and it's really heavy at a
Speaker 1: heavy period when I was younger, and I have to
Speaker 1: go compete against the best girls in the country, and
Speaker 1: if I don't show up today, then I might not
Speaker 1: get selected for the national team. A lot of pressure
Speaker 1: for a thirteen year old to put on themselves, but
Speaker 1: add in the period and it's a nightmare.
Speaker 2: So how does a competitive lifeguard end up rebuilding the
Speaker 2: most used period product in America? Coming up the stand
Speaker 2: for class where she meets her co founder, the Spiral
Speaker 2: sketch that starts the whole thing, and a four year
Speaker 2: struggle to get a tiny piece of cotton past the FDA.
Speaker 2: We'll hear all about it right after the break. Skip
Speaker 2: ahead to college. You went to Stanford and studied product
Speaker 2: design engineering. How did you get into engineering? What drew
Speaker 2: you to the field, Like, what did you think your
Speaker 2: career goals were going to be at that point?
Speaker 1: I did not think I was going to be an engineer.
Speaker 1: I came back from my trip to my first World
Speaker 1: Championships in France in twenty fourteen in high school, and
Speaker 1: I was amazed with the world out there. I was
Speaker 1: meeting people from all over the world, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a diplomat. I had a couple
Speaker 1: internships in New York that were setting me in that direction.
Speaker 1: I got to Stanford. I was going to study political science,
Speaker 1: and after one quarter I called my mom and I
Speaker 1: was like, I think I'm going to switch to the
Speaker 1: engineering school, and she was like, who are you and
Speaker 1: what have you done with my child. It's funny to
Speaker 1: look back on it now and think like, Oh, I
Speaker 1: was going to go working. I wanted to go work
Speaker 1: in government really badly. Oh, Wow, and why what was
Speaker 1: drawing you to government? I felt like it was a
Speaker 1: way that I could have an impact for me. The
Speaker 1: world just kept getting bigger and bigger, right I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I can travel the world and play sports.
Speaker 1: And then I made the national team and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, there's so many interesting people out there
Speaker 1: that I need to meet. And then I started to
Speaker 1: think about how could I do something as a profession
Speaker 1: that would be impactful, something that I would feel good
Speaker 1: about doing while also getting to explore and meet people.
Speaker 2: And is that because there was no professional path in
Speaker 2: the sport that you were in. How did you see
Speaker 2: those two paths playing out, like your professional profession and
Speaker 2: professional life saving?
Speaker 1: So there really is no professional pathway in Australia. There's
Speaker 1: a pretty robust like semi professional. There are some professional
Speaker 1: athletes there. That was on my radar and I did
Speaker 1: end up spending a summer season in Australia competing, but
Speaker 1: it was always going to be short term. That was
Speaker 1: never going to be the end goal for me. That
Speaker 1: was fun pathway, obviously not very viable. The other was
Speaker 1: I could go and become a professional lifeguard for La
Speaker 1: County or out in California, there are you know, it's
Speaker 1: like fire lifeguard, everyday heroes. And I have a lot
Speaker 1: of friends that are unbelievable, unbelievable women. Firefighters and lifeguards
Speaker 1: are real life superwomen. But when I got into Stanford,
Speaker 1: that was not the direction that I saw myself going.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have this duality that was the lifeguard,
Speaker 1: the competitor, the surfer, the person at the beach, and
Speaker 1: that was a part of me that I really loved.
Speaker 1: But I also wanted to pursue a side of me
Speaker 1: that could be professional. I had had a significant business
Speaker 1: that I started in high school and then continued through college.
Speaker 3: Oh what was that business?
Speaker 1: I was doing private swim lessons, surf lessons, lifeguarding, and
Speaker 1: then in college I was doing private ocean safety lessons
Speaker 1: for families that were coming and spending their summers on
Speaker 1: the East End. And that business was small and all
Speaker 1: the side when I was life guarding in high school,
Speaker 1: but it grew to be very large. And I loved
Speaker 1: the dynamics of having clients, and I loved making money,
Speaker 1: and I loved that I could see if I put
Speaker 1: work into something that I would have a result that
Speaker 1: gratification was similar in school, it was similar in sports,
Speaker 1: and it was similar in work as well, and that
Speaker 1: was what pushed me in the direction of I really
Speaker 1: want to go to Stanford. I want to push myself.
Speaker 1: I want to do something hard. I don't want to
Speaker 1: go to Stanford and do something that I know I'm
Speaker 1: good at. And that's why I switched to the engineering school,
Speaker 1: doing something that I was not as confident in math
Speaker 1: and science in high school. I was obviously had good grades,
Speaker 1: but going over to the engineering school was pushing myself
Speaker 1: and I put myself up to the challenge because back
Speaker 1: down from a challenge before that.
Speaker 2: Product design engineering were you just like searching around for
Speaker 2: something to create.
Speaker 1: There was actually an upperclassman on my floor. I was
Speaker 1: in this mixed class dorm usually at Stanford Go and
Speaker 1: it's all freshmen. I thought it was the worst thing
Speaker 1: ever I'd been put in the store, and with all
Speaker 1: these older people, I was like, I don't want.
Speaker 3: To be around the older people.
Speaker 1: And there was this junior on my floor who had
Speaker 1: done this project where it was this storytelling exercise and
Speaker 1: you had to tell a story about yourself and build
Speaker 1: out a kind of physical manifestation of that, and then
Speaker 1: later in the quarter, it was telling a story about
Speaker 1: a group of people that you had researched. And then
Speaker 1: there was a component to it where you were actually
Speaker 1: consulting for a business and telling the story of their customers.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was so cool that you could
Speaker 1: go and talk to people, learn about the world around you,
Speaker 1: and then do something that was helpful for them. I
Speaker 1: asked him what his major was, and he said, product design,
Speaker 1: and you learn about people and tell their stories so
Speaker 1: that you can build better products and systems for them,
Speaker 1: so that they can have a better life.
Speaker 2: So you met your co founder Greta at stand How
Speaker 2: did you guys meet?
Speaker 1: So we were both in the product design engineering department.
Speaker 1: It was crazy that we had never been paired on
Speaker 1: a class project together yet, because you do so many
Speaker 1: group projects in the major when we were paired together.
Speaker 1: When we came together for a project our senior year,
Speaker 1: it was almost serendipitous that we had never worked together yet,
Speaker 1: but that we would work on something so significant together.
Speaker 1: We always knew each other socially, but I think the
Speaker 1: meet cute that always sits in my mind is we
Speaker 1: were not in a It was in a class for
Speaker 1: our major. It was an elective, so we'd both chosen
Speaker 1: to be there. It was a startup class. It was
Speaker 1: ten weeks to put a business plan together, pitch it
Speaker 1: to investors, network guests, and going to come in and
Speaker 1: they would give you a grade on your project. But
Speaker 1: it was like your startup. And I remember it was
Speaker 1: downstairs and there's like a spiral staircase because of course
Speaker 1: Stanford's beautiful like that, and we're coming up the spiral
Speaker 1: staircase and I remember Kreta was on her bike with
Speaker 1: her backpack with her hot sauce that she always had
Speaker 1: in the kind of water bottle holder of her backpack,
Speaker 1: and I remember her saying, you know, I know we
Speaker 1: have four other boys in our group, but I really
Speaker 1: think we should work on period products. She said, I've
Speaker 1: always struggled with my period products. On game day, Greta
Speaker 1: played divisional lacrosse at Stanford unbelievable athlete and was wearing white,
Speaker 1: Stanford's home team uniform, and she had told me that
Speaker 1: she had been thinking about period products for a while
Speaker 1: with her teammates and how they were never reliable. They
Speaker 1: were always having these like can you check me incidents
Speaker 1: on the field, and she wondered if I had a
Speaker 1: similar experience, And you know, we talked about my years
Speaker 1: in life saving and with going through puberty while having
Speaker 1: to commeet in a bathing suit and getting my period
Speaker 1: for the first time at a swim meat and had
Speaker 1: all these stories very different from hers, but common theme.
Speaker 1: Period products were unreliable and they consistently let us down
Speaker 1: when we needed them the most.
Speaker 2: We just so happened to have Greta Mayor, Amanda's co
Speaker 2: founder and the CEO of SQL, in the studio with us,
Speaker 2: so we decided to have her jump right into the
Speaker 2: conversation to provide some extra context for how zeql came
Speaker 2: to be. Gret is, actually here, Can you come in?
Speaker 2: I feel like you should come in. We want like
Speaker 2: your side of this story. Is that your recollection? Like
Speaker 2: what is your first impressions of Amanda?
Speaker 4: I remember that because it was a little bit radical.
Speaker 4: We each had male project partners. I think you had
Speaker 4: two or three and I had one, and then we
Speaker 4: ended up merging together our groups. I don't know really
Speaker 4: why we need it for we needed four. I had
Speaker 4: two and you had three, so we were like, let's
Speaker 4: just be five, and then our professor kept being like,
Speaker 4: five co founders is too many, and he would always
Speaker 4: point us out and be like, disaster is going to strike,
Speaker 4: kind of like we're reading case studies about like, okay,
Speaker 4: five co founders is probably too many. But I think
Speaker 4: having boys was really interesting for us because once that
Speaker 4: meet cute happened, somehow convinced also the boys to work
Speaker 4: on it, like this is actually something we're passionate about
Speaker 4: world take all the interviews with women trying to figure
Speaker 4: out what's going on with period products and doing the
Speaker 4: actual research. You guys can kind of help formalize that research,
Speaker 4: do some of the report writing. They did our homework, Yes,
Speaker 4: they did the other part of the class, but that
Speaker 4: we were like, we're not expecting you to interview women
Speaker 4: about their period. So it kind of worked well. We're
Speaker 4: very determined to prove the professor wrong. But also we
Speaker 4: had such a clear setup with these guys that we
Speaker 4: were like, we're going to take this to another class
Speaker 4: project after this, and we ended up doing that for
Speaker 4: the rest of the year.
Speaker 3: Were they psyched about it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think they were excited about it. I mean
Speaker 4: it was such a unique problem. I think a lot
Speaker 4: of the times. And this was from a friend of
Speaker 4: mine who'd taken the class before, is like, just be
Speaker 4: aware everyone's going to do bill splitting and storage for
Speaker 4: college students, which happens every quarter of this class, because
Speaker 4: that's like the biggest problems you can think of as
Speaker 4: a college, like life changing stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think we were just like, Okay, this is something
Speaker 4: we're so passionate about and it's interesting. We don't know
Speaker 4: what the solution is going to be, but they were
Speaker 4: interested enough to you know, just kind of carry that
Speaker 4: towards through the end of the project.
Speaker 1: And we made them wear white pants for the final presentation. Yes,
Speaker 1: and they were on board. Yeah, incredible, they were definitely
Speaker 1: on board.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But because it was actually interesting and it was
Speaker 4: like engaging, the professor loved it. Our professor actually became
Speaker 4: an investor, and yeah, we have very fond memories of that.
Speaker 2: Had anyone ever done a period product or something adjacent
Speaker 2: for the class, this was totally different, I think you
Speaker 2: think so.
Speaker 3: I think it was really left field.
Speaker 1: I think that was also why our final presentation had
Speaker 1: such a huge impact, because, as Greta said, everyone was like,
Speaker 1: here's a new app for you to split your bill
Speaker 1: or summer storage. And then we came on everyone's wearing
Speaker 1: white pants and red shirts and we were tampro at
Speaker 1: that point in time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, and we were.
Speaker 1: Your professional tampon salution and we were going to use
Speaker 1: female athletes as our influencers. And the investors in the
Speaker 1: room were like, let us know if you do this.
Speaker 3: How close are far?
Speaker 2: Was that original pitch and design and business plan from
Speaker 2: where you ended up launching?
Speaker 4: Well in time, it took us a lot longer than
Speaker 4: we expected. We were quite naive, I think about the
Speaker 4: FDA manufacturing, just all of that, even if the outcome
Speaker 4: actually was rather similar.
Speaker 3: I think there were many more steps along the way.
Speaker 4: But we actually look back like our initial presentation was
Speaker 4: a hideous sketch that I made of a spiral sort
Speaker 4: of tampon. I think it had about ten circumferences completed
Speaker 4: versus ours right now was like three and a half.
Speaker 3: So that definitely changed.
Speaker 4: But the idea, the concept behind it, and the idea
Speaker 4: of okay, what if we actually treated this like gam
Speaker 4: day equipment versus some forgotten taboo thing that you're like
Speaker 4: whispering to your teammate about that thread really is where
Speaker 4: we are right now.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you, Greta, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: So you guys did it for the class, you did
Speaker 2: it for a second class, yes, and then you started
Speaker 2: raising money while you were in school.
Speaker 1: So when we were in school, so Greta and I
Speaker 1: were both in the product design major, we had to
Speaker 1: do a capstone. This is interesting because Greta had a
Speaker 1: return offer from a summer internship that she crushed the
Speaker 1: summer before.
Speaker 3: They were desperately wanting her to come back. I believe
Speaker 3: that having just interviewed her for thirty seconds. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were like, please come back, we need you,
Speaker 1: and I was like, actually I need you.
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 1: I was actually planning to go to Australia to compete
Speaker 1: and do life saving probably do some work while I
Speaker 1: was there, but it's very common for life saving national
Speaker 1: team members, whether it be British team, French team, US team,
Speaker 1: to go and spend a summer or two on the
Speaker 1: Gold Coast of Australia and compete, And so that was
Speaker 1: my plan.
Speaker 3: After college.
Speaker 1: I did actually take a quarter off of Stanford my
Speaker 1: junior year to go and compete over the summer. My
Speaker 1: mom was like, she is such a stage. She was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want you to have an opportunity after college
Speaker 1: and not be able to take it because you feel
Speaker 1: like you need to do this thing to complete your
Speaker 1: life and your goals in life.
Speaker 3: Saving and so you should go and do it in college.
Speaker 1: And if you want to go back after school, that's
Speaker 1: totally fine, but just make sure you do that before
Speaker 1: something else happens. I am so thankful that my mom
Speaker 1: pushed me to do that in college because this unbelievable
Speaker 1: opportunity came about where Greta and I were working on
Speaker 1: this as our capstone, and I realized that this was
Speaker 1: the opportunity that was going to prevent me from going
Speaker 1: to Australia. And I realized that I had accomplished all
Speaker 1: the things that I needed to accomplish. I won the
Speaker 1: national championships, I'd competed for my country. I had raced
Speaker 1: in Australia and done their like amateur semi pro series,
Speaker 1: and I'd lived abroad and did that full time. And
Speaker 1: so I was ready to have a new goal that
Speaker 1: was just as crazy as making the national team, and
Speaker 1: that was creating a tampon that was more reliable.
Speaker 3: And that's what we did.
Speaker 1: We were able to raise almost fifty thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: non dilutive grant funding while we were students, and that
Speaker 1: gave us the funding to graduate from Stamford in June
Speaker 1: of twenty nineteen and then spend the summer in San
Speaker 1: Francisco figuring out our business plan, how we were going
Speaker 1: to raise our friends and family around or preceed round,
Speaker 1: and then our next steps in terms of developing this
Speaker 1: new design for the tampon.
Speaker 2: Here's a quick refresher on the history of the tampon.
Speaker 2: Tampon light constructions have been used for thousands of years,
Speaker 2: but the modern tampon we know was invented in nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty one by a man named doctor Earl has It
Speaker 2: revolutionized period care for women across the globe and is
Speaker 2: the most used period product in America, But the basic
Speaker 2: design of the tampon has remained largely unchanged until now.
Speaker 3: What was so revolutionary about the design?
Speaker 1: So when Greta and I started looking into the period space,
Speaker 1: tampons kept coming up over and over again. We were
Speaker 1: both athletes, we interviewed a lot of athletes, but also
Speaker 1: tampons are the most widely used product in the US.
Speaker 1: And so we kept hearing my tammon is failing before
Speaker 1: it's full. It's uncomfortable, it's dry, it's stiff, it's not
Speaker 1: working the way that I need it to. And we
Speaker 1: recognized that first and foremost, the tampon was invented by
Speaker 1: a man almost one hundred years ago, and that design
Speaker 1: has not dramatically changed since then. And second of all,
Speaker 1: every tampon on the market, it's a very monopolized industry,
Speaker 1: and so the designs are all very similar, and they
Speaker 1: all have these vertical channels that go top to bottom,
Speaker 1: and we discovered they funnel the fluid away from the
Speaker 1: absorbent core, causing premature product failure and discomfort, dryness, uneven absorption.
Speaker 3: And so Greta was talking about the spiral kind of
Speaker 3: sketch that she did.
Speaker 1: We hypothesized that the most fluid mechanically efficient design for
Speaker 1: a tampon would be introducing a helical spiral around the
Speaker 1: outside that would interrupt the vertical flow path downward and
Speaker 1: promote even absorption. Interrupt that flow path downward to prevent
Speaker 1: premature leaks.
Speaker 3: And I feel like some.
Speaker 2: Of the conversations around tampons over the last few years
Speaker 2: or like that it wasn't tested on actual lie, that
Speaker 2: it was tested on water, that it involved chemicals that
Speaker 2: we don't want to put in our bodies, Like how
Speaker 2: did you address those pieces?
Speaker 1: This is something that we took so much care and
Speaker 1: thought with because we were starting from the ground up.
Speaker 1: We weren't going to a factory and saying we'll take
Speaker 1: your best private label offerings and we'll put a brand
Speaker 1: on it. We were two engineers starting from what we
Speaker 1: wanted to build and starting from scratch, and so we
Speaker 1: did a lot of research around what materials we wanted
Speaker 1: to use and how we wanted to test. So we
Speaker 1: do a lot of testing a live on TikTok Live Now,
Speaker 1: and we make this fake blood mixture with chocolate syrup
Speaker 1: and corn syrup and red food dye, and people love it.
Speaker 1: They love seeing something that's more viscous. And a lot
Speaker 1: of the testing is with a saline solution, and so
Speaker 1: we wanted to do things differently. In order to commercialize
Speaker 1: our product, we needed to go through the FDA. We
Speaker 1: needed to get FDA five ten K clearance because it
Speaker 1: is a medical device in the United States, and so
Speaker 1: we had to go through an unbelievable amount of testing
Speaker 1: in order to even get to the point where we
Speaker 1: could submit to the FDA. We worked with Greta track Down,
Speaker 1: the world leading expert in toxic shock syndrome, to do
Speaker 1: a lot of our testing. We brought in incredible experts
Speaker 1: from Procter and Gamble and Johnson and Johnson to make
Speaker 1: sure that we were doing things right because we had
Speaker 1: an incredible opportunity to do things the right way right
Speaker 1: and I feel like building our product and then getting
Speaker 1: submitting to the FDA for so long, that was our
Speaker 1: world championship was That was Greta's NCAA Championships. In college,
Speaker 1: that was like the biggest event and you train and
Speaker 1: train and train and you prepare and something. For me
Speaker 1: in sports, I never wanted to get onto the line
Speaker 1: at the national Championships and feel like I didn't do
Speaker 1: the work. I wanted to show up at the US
Speaker 1: Nationals and know that I worked harder than every single
Speaker 1: person there. And the only way that you can know
Speaker 1: if you're the person that's working the hardest is is
Speaker 1: if you really tell yourself that, but also actually do
Speaker 1: the work so that you can confidently tell yourself that right.
Speaker 1: You need to be able to back it up. If
Speaker 1: that self talk is going to be I've worked harder
Speaker 1: to be here than anybody else.
Speaker 3: You have to have the receipts.
Speaker 1: And so when we submitted to the FDA, that was
Speaker 1: it felt like we were rocking up to our World
Speaker 1: Championships or our nationals, and it was you know, I've
Speaker 1: done all the work that I needed to do and
Speaker 1: more because I am more prepared than anybody else.
Speaker 3: Showing up on this line and it took you.
Speaker 2: Four years, like that is significant, I think, especially for
Speaker 2: a young person who's trying to launch something. If you
Speaker 2: had known it was going to take that long, do
Speaker 2: you think you would have gone down that path?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: What do you've chosen a different path? Did you guys
Speaker 2: take outside jobs? Did you raise money?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: How did you manage? It's a long time. It's a
Speaker 3: long time.
Speaker 1: So we were able to secure preceed investors when we
Speaker 1: didn't have any more grant funding after that summer, we
Speaker 1: were able to raise a preseed round that allowed us
Speaker 1: to start get to work building this product. And it's
Speaker 1: funny you look at the slides, Greta said this. You
Speaker 1: look at the slides and it's like, we're going to
Speaker 1: have FDA clearance in twenty twenty one or something, and
Speaker 1: it was twenty nineteen, or we're gonna have it in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and obviously that didn't happen. But to us
Speaker 1: it was years of you'd find one piece of the
Speaker 1: puzzle and then that would unlock four more and you
Speaker 1: were just following these leads. Now, I also have to
Speaker 1: mention that the state of the world had changed, has
Speaker 1: changed dramatically since we started the company. We started this
Speaker 1: project in the fall of twenty eighteen, we graduated in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, and then COVID was in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: And so while our end goal.
Speaker 1: Has remained the same, developing the spiral tampon, getting it
Speaker 1: in the hands of women everywhere, so many aspects of
Speaker 1: the business had to change and pivot because of the
Speaker 1: world around us, and the world was changing.
Speaker 2: Can you give us some examples of that, Like I
Speaker 2: think about you guys, you know, thinking that you're going
Speaker 2: to get FDA not even approval, but like submission in
Speaker 2: one year, two years, and it ended up being four years.
Speaker 2: I can only imagine that there were many times that
Speaker 2: you felt like, ugh, like.
Speaker 3: Are we ever going to do this?
Speaker 2: Do we just give up, like how did you What
Speaker 2: are the ways that you had to adjust the business?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think working remote in COVID was really interesting.
Speaker 1: That changed the dynamics of research and development and how
Speaker 1: quickly we were able to do things because people were
Speaker 1: either unavailable or we needed to get on zoom.
Speaker 3: And I think.
Speaker 1: We all realize now there is no replacement for being
Speaker 1: in person and being together, and so that was an
Speaker 1: interesting pivot. I think learning how we were going to
Speaker 1: build the business and to what each of our strengths
Speaker 1: were as time passed was really interesting as well. When
Speaker 1: you start a company and your two co founders you
Speaker 1: do the same thing, and you do everything together very
Speaker 1: early on, and then you learn if your business survives
Speaker 1: long enough, that it's not very effective or efficient for
Speaker 1: two people to be doing the same thing together all
Speaker 1: the time, and so you have to lean into your strengths.
Speaker 1: And it's crazy to think that we both grew up
Speaker 1: professionally and personally starting this at twenty one, and we
Speaker 1: kind of grew up as the business grew up too,
Speaker 1: and we had to learn, you know, what are our
Speaker 1: strengths professionally and what are you going to tackle over here?
Speaker 1: And what am I going to tackle over here? It's
Speaker 1: really a team sport, so it's like we can't be
Speaker 1: playing the same position. So what position are you going
Speaker 1: to play? What am I going to play? And who
Speaker 1: do we need to bring in to help us?
Speaker 2: Do you think because you played team sports it made
Speaker 2: you better equip to have that conversation? Because I can
Speaker 2: see that going real south. It's like you both think
Speaker 2: you're coming in with the same skill set and the
Speaker 2: same strength, Like who ends up getting that portfolio of
Speaker 2: like the thing you both came in being good at?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: I think so because you have to be very self
Speaker 1: aware that you know this is my position and this
Speaker 1: is not my position.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: It was interesting when I was competing on the national team.
Speaker 1: I would go to US Nationals and do every event
Speaker 1: and that's fun and whatever, and then I would go
Speaker 1: to the World Championships and I was a specialist and
Speaker 1: I only went to do beach flags and the beach sprints.
Speaker 1: And then I would put my hand up and say,
Speaker 1: if you need me for the surf ski or the
Speaker 1: paddle board or the swim, I'll plug in and I'll
Speaker 1: do it. And that very different but also similar to
Speaker 1: Greta's experience playing lacrosse, saying, this is my position, this
Speaker 1: is my role, and I rely on the rest of
Speaker 1: my team to make sure that I get a shot
Speaker 1: on goal. And so you can see those two different.
Speaker 1: They're different perspectives, but they play really well to working
Speaker 1: on a team together. And I think self awareness is everything.
Speaker 2: I hear horror stories about women trying to fundraise, and
Speaker 2: the statistics about women being able to raise VC money,
Speaker 2: private equity money, any money are abysmal, and those statistics
Speaker 2: are for every female founder, like women trying to start
Speaker 2: AI companies, apps that bill split, whatever the thing is
Speaker 2: they're trying to raise money for. You went straight into
Speaker 2: the deepen, so to speak. You were like, here's a
Speaker 2: topic that no man wants to talk about, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to try to take your money to do it
Speaker 2: and believe in me. Can you tell us about some
Speaker 2: of those fundraising conversations you had.
Speaker 1: I mean, one that is so top of mind is
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, we were pitching female athletes as our
Speaker 1: influencers that were going to promote the product and drive
Speaker 1: trust and credibility for our future customers, and some people
Speaker 1: got it, like we obviously raised the funding, but so
Speaker 1: many people said, you know, why don't you think bigger
Speaker 1: than sports and female athletes?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: It seems niche, Right, it was niche. It that was
Speaker 1: the feedback we were get. We're like, that's a good beachhead,
Speaker 1: but that'll that won't scale. And it's it's funny looking
Speaker 1: back on those conversations. Now, we did a lot of
Speaker 1: pitching to men and would say, talk to your wife,
Speaker 1: talk to your girlfriend. You have daughters, this is something
Speaker 1: that you should either talk to them about or you
Speaker 1: will have to come up against and have these conversations
Speaker 1: at some point in your life, Like surely you have
Speaker 1: a mom that you could ask about this or female friends. Right,
Speaker 1: there was that piece, and then pairing that with what
Speaker 1: a large market this is and a big business opportunity,
Speaker 1: So I think it's that.
Speaker 3: And then it's also it's like the.
Speaker 1: Money Talks kind of thing, like this is a big
Speaker 1: industry that is not seeing innovation in almost one hundred years.
Speaker 1: It's run by large incumbents, and everybody loves the underdog.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants to back the tenacious small business. It's going
Speaker 1: to take down the monopolies. And then at the same
Speaker 1: time we came to the table explaining our product in
Speaker 1: a very technical way. We're not going in there trying
Speaker 1: to shock and awe. We're saying this is a fluid
Speaker 1: mechanics innovation to a product that is innocuous in everyone's life,
Speaker 1: maybe except for you because you're a man, right yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we have amazing women investors on our cap table.
Speaker 1: We also have unbelievable male investors that saw the vision
Speaker 1: from day one and have supported us since the very beginning.
Speaker 2: Were you able to find a couple of like key
Speaker 2: arguments or like key profiles of investors where you're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: they're going to be a yes, or let's move on.
Speaker 1: I'll say that looking back on it now, the investors
Speaker 1: that were early backers that are the most important to
Speaker 1: us today all came from an understanding in sports. So
Speaker 1: two of our most incredible investors that Greta and I
Speaker 1: speak to at least every week, to Ossio Grazioli, who
Speaker 1: is an investor in the Washington Spirit. She has this
Speaker 1: fund called News Sport. They just took a majority ownership
Speaker 1: in sale GP Atalia. She understands the dynamics of sports,
Speaker 1: but then also understands that there needs to be women's
Speaker 1: health and infrastructure to support women's sports as it grows.
Speaker 1: And then Adrian Fenty, who is a partner at Macventure Capital.
Speaker 1: He founded the firm and he was the former mayor
Speaker 1: of DC and his kids played college sports. He is
Speaker 1: also an unbelievable triathlete and is an athlete himself, and
Speaker 1: so when we were pitching to him this tampon for performance,
Speaker 1: he said, obviously this is needed.
Speaker 3: Obviously this is game day equipment.
Speaker 2: In a minute, Amanda will tell us how SEQL approached
Speaker 2: getting this new tampon design into the Indiana Fever locker room,
Speaker 2: why it's so important for men's sports spaces to stock
Speaker 2: period products, and how SQL has grown with the rise
Speaker 2: of women's sports and culture. Be right back, you've said
Speaker 2: that your timing was ideal, like that it took a
Speaker 2: little bit of time because you are focused on this
Speaker 2: women's sports as influencer vertical that your timing of launch
Speaker 2: ended up coinciding with the rise of female athletes being
Speaker 2: more mainstream. So how do you see your role in
Speaker 2: like building the category of female athletes like women's sports
Speaker 2: right now, We.
Speaker 1: Could not have had better timing. Truly, it took so
Speaker 1: much longer than we sought to do, the manufacturing in
Speaker 1: the FDA and everything. But when we caught the FDA
Speaker 1: clearance in twenty twenty three and came out the other
Speaker 1: side to this unbelievable growth in women's sports, I could
Speaker 1: not feel more lucky.
Speaker 3: And I do believe that I just said this.
Speaker 1: As women's sports continues to grow, there are categories that
Speaker 1: are endemic to women's sports that need to also grow
Speaker 1: with it. Right there are products that women need that
Speaker 1: are unique to them, that they will need to perform.
Speaker 3: At the highest levels.
Speaker 1: And I am so honored to be a part of
Speaker 1: that and have been there and authentically there from twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen to now. And every time I see an infant
Speaker 1: formula company sponsoring a women's sports league or fau pill
Speaker 1: working with unrivaled things like that, I am so happy
Speaker 1: that we get to be a part of a time
Speaker 1: and a place and a moment where people are listening
Speaker 1: to us and there's a seat at the table for us.
Speaker 1: It's there, And we got the FTATE clearance in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, and we took our seat at the table
Speaker 1: and said let's get to work.
Speaker 2: You've had some really interesting partnerships, and you've shared with
Speaker 2: me before the show and hopefully now right on the
Speaker 2: show some really interesting and innovative ideas that you have
Speaker 2: around the marathon, around like the NWSL and having stadiums
Speaker 2: that host both men's and women's Like, can you share
Speaker 2: some of those ideas with us?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've had so much fun with now our team.
Speaker 1: We have a team now, which is amazing. We have
Speaker 1: so much fun bringing to life our vision that women
Speaker 1: deserve better and they deserve high performance products, and how
Speaker 1: do we show women that they can have access to
Speaker 1: these products and have access to the same products that
Speaker 1: their heroes have access to in a way that we
Speaker 1: do That that I'm so excited about is improving the
Speaker 1: female fan experience because the female fans of women's sports
Speaker 1: and men's sports too are incredibly valuable customers, but they're
Speaker 1: also high impact customers. Those are the women that are
Speaker 1: going to the game because they love sports. Those are
Speaker 1: the women that are going to their daughter's soccer game
Speaker 1: every weekend because they want their daughter to grow up
Speaker 1: and joining sports. Those are sports families and households that
Speaker 1: because Lexi Hall uses the sequel tampon, now mom is
Speaker 1: going to go out and buy that product for her
Speaker 1: daughters because her role model uses that product and it
Speaker 1: makes that period conversation so much easier. And we've done
Speaker 1: that with the Indiana Fever where the official tampon partner
Speaker 1: of the team. And we also work with Lexie Hall,
Speaker 1: who is an incredible athlete and also has two engineering
Speaker 1: degrees from Stanford, incredible role model, and we've had such
Speaker 1: an incredible success being able to supply tampons for their
Speaker 1: locker room but also for the fans. We did an
Speaker 1: incredibly innovative partnership with DC United, which is led by
Speaker 1: Danida Johnson, who is my hero personally. She is a
Speaker 1: rock star leading that team and leading the initiative to
Speaker 1: put complimentary period products in Audi Field and have a tamp.
Speaker 3: DC United is the men's team, that's right, it's the
Speaker 3: men socer team, that's right.
Speaker 1: Have a tampon partnership with the men's team because they
Speaker 1: care about their female fans. We also work with DC Power,
Speaker 1: which is they play out of Audi Field. They are
Speaker 1: part of the Gamebridge Super League, which is the newest
Speaker 1: soccer league in the US, and we have the ability
Speaker 1: to supply any fan that goes to Audifield with complimentary
Speaker 1: period products. And it doesn't just have to be Women
Speaker 1: don't just watch women's sports. Women watch sports, and so
Speaker 1: we want to make sure that everybody feels seen and
Speaker 1: also taken care of on game day.
Speaker 2: And the Washington Spirit the women's soccer team also plays
Speaker 2: in that stadium, so by partnering with the men's team
Speaker 2: getting it into the stadium, you are also providing it
Speaker 2: there for the female fans of the women's team.
Speaker 1: That's right, and the women's national rugby team played there
Speaker 1: this summer. Every little girl that's been watching Alona Mayor
Speaker 1: on TikTok probably went to that stadium and then they
Speaker 1: saw a sequel in the bathroom. We had the US
Speaker 1: women's national team at a friendly against Canada in early July.
Speaker 3: We were in the bathroom.
Speaker 1: So with our partnership with Audifield, we are able to
Speaker 1: be there for so many cultural moments.
Speaker 2: And you had told me about your idea. I don't
Speaker 2: know if it ended up happening or not, but your idea
Speaker 2: for the New York Marathon.
Speaker 3: Do you remember that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, tell us about that. I love that.
Speaker 1: So we would love to do something like this in
Speaker 1: the future. So If anybody has any porta potty contacts,
Speaker 1: you send them my way. We would love to turn
Speaker 1: porta potties into tamon changing stations. I mean, you never know.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty six point two miles is a long way
Speaker 1: to go.
Speaker 2: Oh and if you check it, so, yeah, make that
Speaker 2: porta potty feel welcome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, disco ball in there. Love music, I don't know,
Speaker 1: just like get the vibes.
Speaker 3: Going in there. Yeah, yeah, love love.
Speaker 1: But we are constantly thinking of ideas and creative ways
Speaker 1: that we as a small company. We're not a Jersey
Speaker 1: Patch Partner. We're not on the big led, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that we can't make an impact in our
Speaker 1: earliest days and use these impactful moments to grow so
Speaker 1: that I.
Speaker 2: Am the Jersey Patch partner one day. Right, So what
Speaker 2: does success look like for you?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: Where are you going?
Speaker 1: We are really excited to get the Splospiral tampon in
Speaker 1: the hands of as many women as we possibly can.
Speaker 1: On the outside, everyone sees these sports partnerships and athletes
Speaker 1: that we're working with, But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: what we have done is re engineer the tampon for
Speaker 1: the first time in one hundred years, by women athletes
Speaker 1: and engineers, and at our core, we have created technology
Speaker 1: that does not exist anywhere else so that women can
Speaker 1: have a more reliable period experience. And so sports is
Speaker 1: our vehicle, but the technology is what will make somebody
Speaker 1: have a better day. And so we need the product
Speaker 1: to grow and be available all over the country, not
Speaker 1: just in our stadium partners, not just online and on TikTok.
Speaker 1: But we need to grow massively so that we can
Speaker 1: get this product in the hands of as many people
Speaker 1: as we can.
Speaker 2: And I'm very happy that you are now the official
Speaker 2: tampon of my kids' school. Yes, we'll be in our
Speaker 2: athletic center, in all of our bathrooms. It's another place
Speaker 2: where we can make an impact. And I mean, schools
Speaker 2: are so important for us. We're looking at more opportunities,
Speaker 2: not just stadiums, but schools where girls getting their periods
Speaker 2: for the first time can have access to our product,
Speaker 2: to fitness studios where you go in and you're wearing
Speaker 2: your light pilates leggings and you're like, I just am
Speaker 2: about to have the worst day of my life.
Speaker 3: So what is one thing?
Speaker 2: It could be something we've talked about, al right, it
Speaker 2: could be something totally different. But what is one thing
Speaker 2: that at the time you saw as a total low
Speaker 2: point negative. You're like, God, We're never going to do
Speaker 2: this thing, and now you see it as actually having
Speaker 2: launched you to the success you are today.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the timing of everything. I would say
Speaker 1: patience is everything. We were struggling with manufacturers, struggling with
Speaker 1: just development, just getting our R and D finalized so
Speaker 1: that we could move to the next step, but it
Speaker 1: was taking so long. And then when we finally submitted
Speaker 1: to the FDA, finally got the FDA clearance, and then
Speaker 1: launched at this unbelievable moment for women's sports, making this
Speaker 1: incredible moment for sports around the world, that was a
Speaker 1: testament to patience and moving through the process and taking
Speaker 1: the time to actually build something the right way.
Speaker 3: Do you think you'll pivot again?
Speaker 1: Me personally, I think there are many pivots in life.
Speaker 3: And I'm very young.
Speaker 1: I'm twenty eight years old, so I know I've got
Speaker 1: a few more pivots in me. But right now we're
Speaker 1: laser focused on the sequel spiral Tampon Greta, my coo,
Speaker 1: his famous lide on all of our meetings is never
Speaker 1: underestimate the tampon.
Speaker 3: There you have it, Okay, thank you so much, Amanda,
Speaker 3: Thank you for joining.
Speaker 2: For decades, period care for women athletes was treated as private,
Speaker 2: sometimes even taboo. The thing you whisper about to your
Speaker 2: teammates when Amanda talks about tampon is game day equipment.
Speaker 2: Shifting how we view period care across the board is
Speaker 2: a mission for her and for sequel. Amanda dared to
Speaker 2: rethink an outdated product designed by someone who would never
Speaker 2: use it. She took the same problem that almost pulled
Speaker 2: her off the relay as a kid and treated it
Speaker 2: as an engineering challenge and attacked the problem with the
Speaker 2: same energy she brought to the races as an elite athlete.
Speaker 2: She and her co founder Greta built the thing they
Speaker 2: wished they had and have been focused on getting it
Speaker 2: into the hands of the next girl who needs it
Speaker 2: ever since. Think about the offices and the school spaces
Speaker 2: in your life at stock Tampons and make the switch
Speaker 2: to seql. Learn more at triseql dot com. That's all
Speaker 2: for today. See you next Wednesday. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 2: she Pivots. If you like this episode, follow the show
Speaker 2: so you never miss a pivot story and share it
Speaker 2: with one woman in your life who might need to
Speaker 2: hear it. To learn more about our guests and join
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Speaker 2: podcast our. Subscribe to our substack for exclusive content and
Speaker 2: behind the scenes conversations. You can also find us at
Speaker 2: shepivotspod dot com. This episode was produced and edited by
Speaker 2: Paige Davis Janott, with sound editing and mixing by Nina Pollock.
Speaker 2: Logistics and planning by Amostopic and Kendall Krupkin. Research by
Speaker 2: Christine Dickison. She Pivots is proud to be a part
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