Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
Speaker 1: This is pretty smart. Hello. I hope you are having
Speaker 1: a beautiful week. I am coming off a quick trip
Speaker 1: to Las Vegas. I went to Complex Con for all
Speaker 1: of three hours, I would say, and I love seeing
Speaker 1: the booths there. I was actually never a live events person.
Speaker 1: I don't like crowds. You guys probably know that about me.
Speaker 1: But I do like to see what's going on and
Speaker 1: what's part of the zeitgeist. And I love seeing creatives
Speaker 1: and creativity and just like what's possible. When I see
Speaker 1: other people create booths or art or clothing, or create anything, really,
Speaker 1: I get so inspired for my own sake, like my
Speaker 1: own creativity. I've actually felt the last few weeks. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you ever get this, but I've felt tired,
Speaker 1: and not at my Midwest accent.
Speaker 2: Came out tired.
Speaker 1: Not tired in a way that like that I could
Speaker 1: sleep off, really tired in a way that my body
Speaker 1: was just saying slow down. It happens to me every
Speaker 1: so often. I don't know if it's my hormones or
Speaker 1: if it's the time of year, or just my body
Speaker 1: telling me something. But I had about three or four
Speaker 1: weeks of just needing extra sleep, and in that I
Speaker 1: wasn't really creating as much. And after this weekend, I
Speaker 1: feel recharged and inspired again, like the ideas are flowing.
Speaker 1: I'm getting excited for what's to come. So I don't
Speaker 1: know if you ever feel like you are in a rut,
Speaker 1: but sometimes I feel like that time. It's not a rut,
Speaker 1: it's not a waste. It's actually really important to just
Speaker 1: let your mind and your body take a moment. What
Speaker 1: else is going on? Oh? You know how on the
Speaker 1: Pod a few weeks ago, I said I was going
Speaker 1: to New York for two celebrity interviews. Well, I actually
Speaker 1: ended up canceling the trip, which it was quite a bummer.
Speaker 1: Felt like I got some of my money back, but
Speaker 1: not all of it. I canceled the trip because one
Speaker 1: of the guests, the probably like the most notable name,
Speaker 1: canceled and it really got me. I was so mad
Speaker 1: about it because I had put so much time and
Speaker 1: energy into scheduling this trip, you know, like I do
Speaker 1: the pod independently, so when I do the interviews in person,
Speaker 1: I'm booking a studio location and the camera people and
Speaker 1: audio and hair and makeup, like it's a whole production
Speaker 1: that I'm putting together. And so I felt like I
Speaker 1: had wasted other people's time too, which was a bummer.
Speaker 1: But it got me thinking about disappointment because it has
Speaker 1: this way of arriving unannounced, and when one of the
Speaker 1: interviews canceled, not only did it leave a gap where
Speaker 1: I had expected a story and connection and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of messed up the podcast schedule. The initial sting
Speaker 1: felt like rejection, and it made me question whether I
Speaker 1: had misjudged the importance of the opportunity and my own
Speaker 1: worth to be honest, was the pod not great enough
Speaker 1: for them? Was it not big enough? You know, all
Speaker 1: those things. But then I remembered one of the most
Speaker 1: enduring lessons from the four agreements. Never take things personally.
Speaker 1: You never know what's going on in people's lives. And
Speaker 1: I think if we can view disappointment through that lens,
Speaker 1: it becomes less of an affront and more of a redirection.
Speaker 1: But I was left with this question, when do we
Speaker 1: stand firm and when do we soften? And choose kindness
Speaker 1: over indignation. It feels like a delicate tension because on
Speaker 1: one hand, sometimes you need to hold your ground and
Speaker 1: it honors your time and your value, and it says
Speaker 1: I matter, don't mess with me, you know. And on
Speaker 1: the other hand, extending grace is of ultimate importance. It
Speaker 1: acknowledges the humanity of the other person and often the
Speaker 1: unseen messes and struggles that may have shaped their decision.
Speaker 1: I've found one of the greatest lessons of doing this
Speaker 1: podcast and booking Guess is that the truth is you
Speaker 1: rarely know what's going on with people behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: and I think leading with kindness doesn't mean that you
Speaker 1: let go of your boundaries. It just means that you
Speaker 1: acknowledge that both you and they are navigating a world
Speaker 1: full of complex I've stood my ground before via email,
Speaker 1: and I don't necessarily regret it, but I don't know
Speaker 1: that it was me showing up as my best self.
Speaker 1: And when I've led with kindness, I've never looked back
Speaker 1: and regretted it. So that's what's been on my mind
Speaker 1: this week. I hope you're having a really great week,
Speaker 1: whether it's rest that you're craving or adventure or organization.
Speaker 1: As we're sort of leading up to the holiday season.
Speaker 1: I hope that you're getting what you're craving, and if
Speaker 1: you're not getting it, go get it. Go find a
Speaker 1: way to carve it out for yourself, because you really
Speaker 1: deserve it, and no one's going to give it to
Speaker 1: you but you. Okay, that was a complete tangent from
Speaker 1: our episode today, so I'm going to jump in. There's
Speaker 1: an old advertising strategy called shrinket and pink it, and
Speaker 1: the idea was simple, take a product made for men,
Speaker 1: make it smaller, slap on the color pink or maybe
Speaker 1: even purple, and that's how you market it towards women.
Speaker 1: This is so baffling when you consider that women control
Speaker 1: seventy to eighty percent of consumer spending. We influence thirty
Speaker 1: one trillion dollars globally trillion, okay trillion. Yet we've just
Speaker 1: been buying pink versions of guy's stuff across the board
Speaker 1: almost and athletic shoes stand out to me is a
Speaker 1: huge one. So today we're going to hear more of
Speaker 1: the why behind some of the pinke it and shrinket
Speaker 1: that comes to my mind, athletic shoes stand out to
Speaker 1: me as a huge one. But some of the other
Speaker 1: items that come to my mind are sporting equipment, safety gear.
Speaker 1: Historically that's just been adapted for women by downside it,
Speaker 1: by downsizing male designs, often resulting in ill fitting and
Speaker 1: less functional products. Can you believe that they test airbags
Speaker 1: on mail test dummies? Air bags are not made for women.
Speaker 1: I constantly think about the conveyor belts at security when
Speaker 1: I'm at the airport. They're made for It's called like
Speaker 1: the Golden Rule, which is basically a six foot one mail.
Speaker 1: That's how they're made. That's how most parks are designed
Speaker 1: for the six foot What's how kitchens and bathrooms are designed.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to a countertop, like gone to
Speaker 1: a hotel or something and been like, why why can't
Speaker 1: I reach this? Or why is this so high? Or
Speaker 1: why does this not fit me? Most of the time
Speaker 1: it's because it's made and design for a six foot
Speaker 1: one mail. But I digress. We're going back to shrink
Speaker 1: it and pink it. Almost all outdoor gear is made
Speaker 1: for men. Some electronics like laptops, definitely, most tools, razors,
Speaker 1: and I have to tell you the two that have
Speaker 1: really bugged me or affected me personally are bicycles and
Speaker 1: backpacks because I love to bike, and every backpack that
Speaker 1: I've ever used that's designed by men, which is why
Speaker 1: I love Dignu Dover so much, just lacks the comfort
Speaker 1: and utility that comes along with making a smaller version
Speaker 1: of a man's product for women instead of making one
Speaker 1: based on the female body. Now you've probably heard the
Speaker 1: famous phrase Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but
Speaker 1: backwards and in heels. It's used to highlight how women
Speaker 1: often do the same things as men, gracefully, but with
Speaker 1: extra challenges. And today we're not necessarily talking about heels,
Speaker 1: we are talking about athletic shoes. It turns out we
Speaker 1: haven't just been living in a man's world. We've been
Speaker 1: walking in it too, And as someone who's dealt with
Speaker 1: my fair share of foot issues, it's wild to think
Speaker 1: that the very foundation of our movement, our feet are
Speaker 1: often supported by products that don't even consider our anatomy.
Speaker 1: Our feet do everything for us. They carry us through workouts, commutes,
Speaker 1: even dance floors. They keep us steady on our path
Speaker 1: literally and metaphorically. You know, in Chinese medicine, they're seen
Speaker 1: as the foundation of the body in the gateway to
Speaker 1: overall health. I really love reflexology, and I've heard certain
Speaker 1: people refer to the feet as the roots of our body,
Speaker 1: kind of like how a tree's roots support its growth
Speaker 1: and stability. Poor foot health is thought to disrupt the
Speaker 1: flow of chi and impact the entire body. So why
Speaker 1: are our feet so overlooked? Why are women's feet and,
Speaker 1: by extension, our health and longevity in afterthought? Joining us
Speaker 1: today is Lindsay Housman, a self proclaimed recreational athlete and
Speaker 1: runner who's discovered this the hard way. After constant foot issues,
Speaker 1: she realized the problem. Athletic shoes were not designed for
Speaker 1: women's feet or bodies, just smaller versions of men's and
Speaker 1: sometimes in pink. Well that didn't sit right with Lindsay,
Speaker 1: and it led her to found Headahs, a running shoe
Speaker 1: brand designed specifically for women. It's been an uphill battle,
Speaker 1: but her startup is turning heads with big brands taking notice.
Speaker 1: Society made something as basic as female athletic shoes harder
Speaker 1: than it really should be. But I think Lindsay's showing
Speaker 1: the world that she can change the game gracefully. In
Speaker 1: today's conversation, Lindsay's going to break down how the footwear
Speaker 1: industry got here, the changes that she's making with heads,
Speaker 1: and what it means to design with women's physiology in mind,
Speaker 1: and if we zoom out of it. The big question
Speaker 1: that I think we're answering today is what happens when
Speaker 1: women demand better and create it for themselves. Lindsay, welcome
Speaker 1: to Pretty Smart.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1: I am so happy to have you here. And it's
Speaker 1: time to talk about shoes. Yes, okay, true or false?
Speaker 1: Most athletic shoes are designed for men. True, shocking, shocking
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four, athletic shoes are built around male physiology.
Speaker 2: Yes, how it just boggles my mind.
Speaker 3: I mean the short answer is it's easier and a
Speaker 3: lot of these legacy brands that still dominate the industry
Speaker 3: today started in the seventies. Track was predominantly male based.
Speaker 3: Even in nineteen eighty six, only twenty percent of women
Speaker 3: were running. Okay, so women's participation in running increased one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty percent since nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: So if you think what do they attribute that to?
Speaker 3: I think it's just it's I'm hypothesizing. Yeah, but if
Speaker 3: I had to guess about what it's being attributed to,
Speaker 3: it's around the accessibility of sport, the acceptance of women
Speaker 3: participating in sport, and women believing they can do sport.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the first woman, Catherine Sweitzer to do the Boston Marathon,
Speaker 3: did it illegally. I'm going to get the year wrong
Speaker 3: that it was the late sixties or early seventies, and
Speaker 3: so even.
Speaker 1: I've seen that photo of hert right, and you.
Speaker 2: Need representation to know that you can do it.
Speaker 3: So as more women participate, more women realize, oh, I
Speaker 3: can do this too, And that's where I think you're seeing,
Speaker 3: you know, even now, exponential growth and women doing ultra
Speaker 3: marathons and things that would previously have been considered not
Speaker 3: appropriate for women back in the day. And so I
Speaker 3: think you've got these brands that started with men as
Speaker 3: the core of their identity, and shoes require a lot
Speaker 3: of tooling, and so when you're investing in all that
Speaker 3: tooling it as you build it out, it gets harder and.
Speaker 2: Harder to turn the boat.
Speaker 3: Oh so now you are introducing women's product, but women
Speaker 3: are a small part of your segment, and it's just
Speaker 3: easier to shrink and pink it than to develop a
Speaker 3: whole new line. And why would you even in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six from a business decision standpoint, when twenty percent
Speaker 3: of your customer base and so then you go another
Speaker 3: twenty years, you now have all these different skews, all
Speaker 3: these different shoes, all with.
Speaker 2: This tooling that exists.
Speaker 3: It's like turning an oil tanker and you have still
Speaker 3: the majorities of these large athletic companies are very male
Speaker 3: dominated at the executive and senior leadership levels, and there's
Speaker 3: just an unconscious bias.
Speaker 1: That exists, like what are the percentages look like now
Speaker 1: for their customer base.
Speaker 2: So the most recent fleet feed report and fleet feet is.
Speaker 3: A major US independent retailer, independent meaning not a big
Speaker 3: box store. Like there's still some corporate owned stores and
Speaker 3: some franchises, but they're your local run store. Okay, sixty
Speaker 3: one percent of their customers are women.
Speaker 1: And there's still not investing money to reach tool.
Speaker 2: This they're starting starting. I mean it was crazy. Last year.
Speaker 2: One brand, I'm not going to name it, name it.
Speaker 3: They released one shoe based off of a woman's last
Speaker 3: and I remember I was on Instagram and I said
Speaker 3: to him, I'm like, did you did you see this?
Speaker 3: I'm like, they just released one shoe. There was no
Speaker 3: media announcement. I don't even know how you find the shoe.
Speaker 3: And this is a really big brand that exists today
Speaker 3: and is very well regarded.
Speaker 2: And I was like oh.
Speaker 3: And then in my mind I was like, oh, this
Speaker 3: is this is good and bad, Like how do we
Speaker 3: how do we maybe going to need to do good?
Speaker 3: Because I think it elevates the conversation bad. Okay, now
Speaker 3: we need to navigate this new competitor, maybe not bad,
Speaker 3: but something we're gonna.
Speaker 1: Have to think about, think about. And then it just
Speaker 1: went away. Wow. And just for context, a lass is
Speaker 1: basically like an impression or the mold that you use.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: A last is like the foot shape in plastic, the
Speaker 3: hard plastic okay, solid, and it's what's used to base
Speaker 3: dictate your shoe design.
Speaker 1: So you and your husband Kyle have invested so much
Speaker 1: in research. That was the first part of this, even
Speaker 1: before you had a product. Yes, I was shocked and
Speaker 1: you were shocked too when you found out that in
Speaker 1: such research, women are considered confounding variables.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, there's a study from twenty sixteen that was
Speaker 3: referenced in the literature review that we funded that stated
Speaker 3: that women are often excluded from sports science research their
Speaker 3: hormones are too variable to control and they represent a
Speaker 3: confounding subject. And this really I remember reading that, clipping
Speaker 3: it out, sending it to all my girlfriends. When we
Speaker 3: got this paper it was twenty twenty one. I found
Speaker 3: this quote referencing twenty sixteen, and it just blew my
Speaker 3: mind that even five years ago that women were still
Speaker 3: considered confounding variables in research.
Speaker 1: Well, it's across the board that that's the case. Historically,
Speaker 1: they've been underrepresented in cardiovascular health, psychology, sports medicine. They're
Speaker 1: finally recognizing gender differences. And you say, a lot of
Speaker 1: it has to do with hormones.
Speaker 2: A lot of the gender differences.
Speaker 3: Hormones are one piece, like physiology is definitely a piece
Speaker 3: as well, but for exclusion from research, hormones is largely
Speaker 3: the piece.
Speaker 1: So what do you think it is about women that
Speaker 1: makes it easy for researchers to easily dismiss them.
Speaker 3: Women's hormones are really variable, even within your monthly cycle,
Speaker 3: and every women's monthly cycle has some variation to it.
Speaker 3: That makes it difficult to understand when they're seeing differences
Speaker 3: in biomechanics, is that really caused by a hormonal variation
Speaker 3: or is that something related to the equipment or the
Speaker 3: training that's happening.
Speaker 2: I think it's hard to measure hormones.
Speaker 3: The historical way of including hormones and research is through
Speaker 3: mailing out ovulation kits. Even when I started discussing including
Speaker 3: hormones in our research with Simon Fraser University, we were
Speaker 3: going to be mailing out ovulation kits. I was fortunate
Speaker 3: to learn of a company out of Calgary that has
Speaker 3: created a way to do hormonal research at scale. Wow,
Speaker 3: and so we are now partnering with them in our research,
Speaker 3: which one ovulation kits limit the population of women you
Speaker 3: can research because they need to be ovulating.
Speaker 1: Whereas I didn't think about that, that's huge.
Speaker 2: That's huge.
Speaker 3: And if you think about there's very little research on
Speaker 3: perimenopausal or menopausal women because you it's difficult to measure
Speaker 3: those hormones without doing a lot of blood testing or
Speaker 3: things that require are a lot of time and analysis.
Speaker 3: And so my normative is the name of the Calgary
Speaker 3: company is working with universities on wide scale hormonal research.
Speaker 1: So how do hormones affect our shoes? Are what we
Speaker 1: need for our shoes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, hormones And this is still early yeah, and so
Speaker 3: and my knowledge is limited. So from what we know
Speaker 3: that there are laxity differences based on when your estrogen
Speaker 3: levels fluctuate in your cycle. And so if you have
Speaker 3: different varying levels of progestrogen and estrogen which happened during
Speaker 3: a monthly mental cycle, they happen during pregnancy postpartum. You know,
Speaker 3: we're always having these variation levels. It affects your tendons
Speaker 3: and your ligaments and the elasticity of them and whether they're.
Speaker 2: Looser or tighter. And so if you think about that
Speaker 2: and you think about.
Speaker 3: Ankle stability or nie stability or hip stability, what you're
Speaker 3: putting on your feet that affects your ability to balance
Speaker 3: as your joints maybe in a state of being hypermobile
Speaker 3: or more rigid based on your hormones.
Speaker 1: Interesting, So how do you solve for that in a shoe?
Speaker 1: Like are what his head is doing? Differently?
Speaker 3: So what part of what we're doing is wanting to
Speaker 3: understand this more so, we have upcoming research studies that
Speaker 3: are focused on the menstrual cycle of women and how
Speaker 3: it affects their performance and measuring both laxity and joints
Speaker 3: as as well as biomechanical measurements that would show how
Speaker 3: their gait is performing or there's asymmetry is occurring. And
Speaker 3: then we're also doing a larger study to understand stand
Speaker 3: in training for an intense race like a marathon or
Speaker 3: a half marathon, what is the interplay between biomechanics, hormones
Speaker 3: and injury. Okay, and if we leverage something like big data,
Speaker 3: can we predict it from the shoes that will help
Speaker 3: inform where do we need more support, where do we
Speaker 3: need to make sure there's less impact.
Speaker 2: Are there different types of insoles we can use?
Speaker 3: Are there different Like the plate design in this shoe
Speaker 3: specifically was designed to reduce impact on joints and to
Speaker 3: provide more stability so that if you're in a phase
Speaker 3: of your cycle where there's more laxity in your joints,
Speaker 3: you don't have to worry as much about rolling your
Speaker 3: ankle or if you've had previous injury. So it's considering
Speaker 3: like those factors.
Speaker 1: So I love how like you see this big issue
Speaker 1: and you decide you're going to be the one to
Speaker 1: solve it. Have you always had this entrepreneurial spirit.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: I'm an accountant by trade, so I'm like extremely pragmatic.
Speaker 3: I've been in finance and technology, but one thing that's
Speaker 3: been really consistent in my life is I never sort
Speaker 3: of settle for status quo, Like there's always a.
Speaker 2: Better way to do something, And I think with this.
Speaker 3: Particular issue, you know, I have a real passion for
Speaker 3: the role that sport plays in girls and in women's
Speaker 3: lives and how it impacts your personal wellbeing, your career,
Speaker 3: your community, and for girls. I'm extremely passionate. I have
Speaker 3: two daughters, they're twins. They're extremely active in sport and
Speaker 3: seeing girls drop out of sport, actually going to assemblies
Speaker 3: and watching grade three to grade seven the number of
Speaker 3: girls shrink, and then knowing what that's going to mean
Speaker 3: for skills that they're going to miss out on developing.
Speaker 3: It all sort of came together when I learned about
Speaker 3: the shoe industry and we had my husband and I
Speaker 3: had this idea that we would start a brand when
Speaker 3: we were you know, our kids were older and out
Speaker 3: of the house, and we had all this time to
Speaker 3: put towards it, and we realized that actually the time
Speaker 3: was now, which was not ideal. Our kids were life
Speaker 3: is very full and busy. We're both also, you know,
Speaker 3: have our careers that I'm transitioning to this, and the
Speaker 3: intent wasn't originally for me to lead it.
Speaker 1: Wait, so you're still both working separate jobs one hundred
Speaker 1: percent and building this, Yes, and that's how you're funding
Speaker 1: this research. Yes, Lindsey, that's incredible.
Speaker 2: It's just what needed to happen.
Speaker 1: Like, so when you say that you're you were weren't
Speaker 1: supposed to lead this, what does that mean?
Speaker 3: Like the when we started this, the idea was Kyle
Speaker 3: would come in transition and and be the CEO, and
Speaker 3: he's your husband, he's my husband. That was the original
Speaker 3: thought way back in twenty twenty. You know, y'all all
Speaker 3: this time in your hands, it's COVID. We went through
Speaker 3: so many different iterations and when we started this, we
Speaker 3: thought we had two investors, okay, and they both fell
Speaker 3: through for different reasons. And being the pragmatmatic person that
Speaker 3: I am, I would never have agreed to this had
Speaker 3: I had thought that we didn't have funding. And I
Speaker 3: remember when the both investors fell through and we got
Speaker 3: the the project plan from Simon Fraser, and doing university
Speaker 3: research is expensive, very and we were either like we
Speaker 3: either fund this or we canceled this whole project.
Speaker 2: And we just so strongly believed in this that we
Speaker 2: cut the check. And are you.
Speaker 1: Able to share how much that was that first check?
Speaker 2: It was close to one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And this is not you're not making a product yet,
Speaker 1: you're not. You were just funding research.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just funding research. We didn't have a
Speaker 3: shoe design, we didn't even have our word mark, we
Speaker 3: don't even have a URL. You're just funding recar.
Speaker 2: Like, if we are going to do this, we are
Speaker 2: gonna do this right.
Speaker 3: And it means that we are doing the work to
Speaker 3: build the product that is going to make a difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess well at that point, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: there's a different level of commitment that you have.
Speaker 2: Then you're in.
Speaker 1: You're in.
Speaker 2: You're in.
Speaker 3: And that was like when we sat down, you know,
Speaker 3: we enjoy wine. We opened a bottle of wine and
Speaker 3: we're like do we like, what do we do? This
Speaker 3: is this is either the move forward or we shelve this,
Speaker 3: And we just both felt so strongly about it, and
Speaker 3: we both firmly believe even the power of brands to
Speaker 3: do good in the world. That we're like, we can
Speaker 3: do this, Like we can. We're crazy, and they counting
Speaker 3: in Me's like what are you doing?
Speaker 1: And this is like your kid's college fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we're gonna do it.
Speaker 1: I have chills. I'm so excited for you because I
Speaker 1: really deeply admire people that take big swings. Oh so
Speaker 1: f you people are willing to go out on a
Speaker 1: limb like that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love seeing little signs and I get inspired by
Speaker 3: quotes or things that I hear on Peloton not religious.
Speaker 3: And I'm driving downtown Vancouver and there's a church and
Speaker 3: it has this billboard sign outside and it says something
Speaker 3: about you know the story of your life and how
Speaker 3: you are in control of it, and the closing line
Speaker 3: on it was so make it a good one, And
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, I'm like, yes, we get one
Speaker 3: chance to do something to make a difference, and we
Speaker 3: will regret this, Like this is something where we feel
Speaker 3: so strongly about and why wouldn't we And that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean it's not stressful, and it doesn't mean there's not tears.
Speaker 2: And you know sometimes you're like, what are we doing?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we just feel so strongly about what we're
Speaker 3: building that we just keep coming back to that during
Speaker 3: the challenges.
Speaker 1: So I know this is difficult because your head is
Speaker 1: so in the science. But if you could try and
Speaker 1: like share this in layman's terms, Yeah, how is head
Speaker 1: is going to change the market? What's it going to
Speaker 1: do for people and for women?
Speaker 3: So I think from a few different perspectives. From a
Speaker 3: product perspective, you know, we're going to build product that
Speaker 3: is made for women, and what that means is that
Speaker 3: the intent is that there will be better performance. We
Speaker 3: hear that people's legs are less tired after running in
Speaker 3: the shoes, that they're not experienced the same amount of
Speaker 3: fatigue after running a race. We've had a lot of
Speaker 3: reports of pain and injury reduction. It just it boggles
Speaker 3: my mind. So now we're collecting those So building good
Speaker 3: product and product that's purposeful for women to stay active
Speaker 3: through your life till you're ninety. Longevity, that's the goal.
Speaker 3: The second part is through community, in building community and
Speaker 3: places and events where women can both come to connect.
Speaker 2: And to learn and share.
Speaker 3: So we host panels of health practitioners with the specialty
Speaker 3: stores that we run in or that we sell in,
Speaker 3: are really grateful that for these events where they come
Speaker 3: and they talk about things like pelvic health, which hasn't
Speaker 3: been a mainstream topic it's starting to become more mainstream
Speaker 3: or through perimenopause, and we can have a conversation around
Speaker 3: how does that affect your training, and so creating these
Speaker 3: safe spaces for women to come and share information. And
Speaker 3: then the third part is really about transparency and what
Speaker 3: we're doing, why we're doing it, What are you putting
Speaker 3: on your feet? What question should you be asking when
Speaker 3: you go to the shoe store about what you're buying
Speaker 3: to put on your feet, to do whatever sport that
Speaker 3: you're doing.
Speaker 1: To me, I don't mean to add a number four,
Speaker 1: but what I'm thinking as you're sharing is the number
Speaker 1: four is that you're changing the industry for all other
Speaker 1: shoe lines to have to catch up to you.
Speaker 3: I mean in a really big aspirational way, like we
Speaker 3: want to create a movement, We want to revolutionize how
Speaker 3: shoes are talked about, created, made, And I think that's
Speaker 3: really where the transparency piece lends in. If we do
Speaker 3: public research if we're sharing that research, if the consumers
Speaker 3: getting educated, if the consumers ask different questions, it starts
Speaker 3: raising the bar of what needs to go into the
Speaker 3: development from the bigger the bigger brands, and that would
Speaker 3: be incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so too. I still am in shock
Speaker 1: that this is not happening on a global scale.
Speaker 3: No, no, it's it really is mind boggling.
Speaker 1: So as you're sharing, I'm thinking this is sort of
Speaker 1: a David and Goliath situation. Like you have these megabrands
Speaker 1: that have been around for really long time, fifty plus
Speaker 1: years sometimes longer, with billion dollars, like they're billion dollar companies,
Speaker 1: and here you are with your husband Kyle, funding research
Speaker 1: to create this. What makes the two of you believe
Speaker 1: that and know that this is something you can do.
Speaker 3: I think are unity and our network and just our
Speaker 3: own experience. We don't believe in doing things on your own.
Speaker 3: We know it takes a village, and we feel very
Speaker 3: strongly about our village. And I think when we started
Speaker 3: doing this, what started to make it seem like it
Speaker 3: was possible was people just wanted to help. And it's
Speaker 3: still it's still happening today. It's how I met you
Speaker 3: It's how I'm going to this conference next week. This
Speaker 3: company in Vancouver that makes videos for Arctics and Lululemon
Speaker 3: in North Face is doing a pro bono video series
Speaker 3: with me because they believe in what we're doing.
Speaker 2: And it's that belief that boys us up.
Speaker 3: The more conversations we have with people that then are like,
Speaker 3: what can I do?
Speaker 2: How can I participate?
Speaker 3: The athletes that are reaching out, the people we've been
Speaker 3: able to collect as part of the team with really
Speaker 3: esteemed resumes that just fundamentally believe in what we're doing.
Speaker 3: It's what keeps you moving forward. They believe in the
Speaker 3: mission and you found the helpers exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'm curious about your and your husband's backgrounds
Speaker 1: because Kyle was the CEO of Native Shoes. He's still
Speaker 1: the CEO of Native Shoes. Yes, so this is interesting,
Speaker 1: and he previously worked for Lululemon. Yes, so there is
Speaker 1: some complimentary experience. Obviously you have the finance background, but
Speaker 1: you used to work in it and you just love gear.
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yeah, So I'm curious what are the
Speaker 1: holes that you're looking to fill right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So both of us are really strong operators. I you
Speaker 3: know the holes we have are on the more creative side, okay,
Speaker 3: and marketings, and we have fortunate we have Julie Channing
Speaker 3: who is with All Birds from launch until twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: She is so passionate about women in sport and she
Speaker 3: also has a daughter, which was another interesting thread of
Speaker 3: everybody that started to help us in the early days.
Speaker 2: Really which I can talk about in a minute because
Speaker 2: it was really fascinating.
Speaker 3: But the marketing side digital Kyle led e commerce at
Speaker 3: Lululemon in the early teens right before we moved to
Speaker 3: Australia for a period of time, and the e commerce
Speaker 3: landscape has really changed, particularly in digital advertising, and so
Speaker 3: you know, learning this new landscape. The creative side, the
Speaker 3: copywriting side, and really that story building are places that
Speaker 3: we were looking for who can be in our village
Speaker 3: and our team to support that, as well as on
Speaker 3: the sales side, which is a newer piece to me,
Speaker 3: and then from raising capital. Even though I've been in finance,
Speaker 3: I've never had to raise money. I've worked in budgeting, planning, forecasting,
Speaker 3: I love building model, I love being in Excel, but
Speaker 3: raising money is very much a different side of sales,
Speaker 3: and so learning how to pitch, and I started enlisting
Speaker 3: help on that. This year where I started joining accelerators,
Speaker 3: one exclusively focused on.
Speaker 2: Women out of New York.
Speaker 3: I did a Dream Ventures accelerator, and then I joined
Speaker 3: Power to Pitch, which is run by two amazing women.
Speaker 3: And finding support in those places to build up skill
Speaker 3: sets or be a supporting skill set.
Speaker 1: So smart. Yeah, I'm curious about the daughter through line.
Speaker 3: The daughter through line really was one of those things
Speaker 3: that also was like, Okay, this is something that needs
Speaker 3: to happen. So obviously Kyle and I have two daughters
Speaker 3: that were a huge inspiration to us building this brand.
Speaker 1: And the head is this named after your daughter?
Speaker 2: Screamed after them? Yes?
Speaker 1: What are their two names?
Speaker 2: Hadley Elizabeth and Taya Ann?
Speaker 1: Okay, so h e ta.
Speaker 3: But that didn't look right when we were this is
Speaker 3: how like accountant's name brands. What are my kids initials?
Speaker 3: How can I arrange them? That rhymes with hepa filter
Speaker 3: and it's COVID, So we're not going to do that.
Speaker 3: And then we started playing with letters and we ended
Speaker 3: up with heetahs, and we wanted it not to be
Speaker 3: a word that had a broad meaning.
Speaker 2: And when we googled it.
Speaker 3: It does have a definition in Swedish which is heat
Speaker 3: and energy, and I worked for a Swedish brand while
Speaker 3: we lived in Australia. That really influenced my perspective of
Speaker 3: how a workplace could be run differently. It was ninety
Speaker 3: percent women. I could go to my kids' swim lessons
Speaker 3: on Mondays. If you went on Matt leave, you got
Speaker 3: diapers for the year. And so I really admired Christina
Speaker 3: for what she built. And so when we had the
Speaker 3: we came up with headahs. It incorporated our daughters and
Speaker 3: daughters initials, and then it had this Swedish nod to
Speaker 3: it and Christina's from Sweden.
Speaker 2: I was like this, this.
Speaker 1: Is all right, this all feels right.
Speaker 3: When we started talking to people, Doug has four daughters
Speaker 3: and two granddaughters, like I alluded to earlier, and so
Speaker 3: he came on as our product partner. Then we were
Speaker 3: speaking to the person at the Biomechanics lab. He has
Speaker 3: three daughters. He introduced us to Chris, who's now our
Speaker 3: head researcher, and I just said, Chris, how many daughters
Speaker 3: do you have? And he was like two, And it
Speaker 3: just at the beginning all of the men in particular
Speaker 3: that were joining Headas and what we wanted to build,
Speaker 3: all of them had daughters. It really blew my mind,
Speaker 3: and it started to be when I would meet with people, particularly.
Speaker 2: Around capital or raising money.
Speaker 3: It's one of the things I try to figure out
Speaker 3: early on, because there's a different meaning to someone that
Speaker 3: has a daughter. And even Dave Shelburne, who is our
Speaker 3: sales lead, he was with that new balance for a
Speaker 3: really long time. His daughter, who's now in her twenties,
Speaker 3: was very active in basketball at a high level through
Speaker 3: her teens and didn't have a great experience with coaching
Speaker 3: and injury and footwear. In his participation in Headas. He
Speaker 3: loves the team, but it's also very personal for him
Speaker 3: around around making a difference.
Speaker 1: I understand that. I think when you have a personal
Speaker 1: buy in, it changes everything. I might have asked you this,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to ask you again, just for context,
Speaker 1: what are the unique needs of female runners.
Speaker 3: I'll get to approach it from a foot perspective to start,
Speaker 3: because that's what we know the most of today is
Speaker 3: that women's feet are anatomically different than men's feet, and
Speaker 3: that there's a whole lot of other pieces in our
Speaker 3: anatomy that varies as well. But when you look at
Speaker 3: running and how the footwear is fitting your foot, the
Speaker 3: shape of our foot which is more pie shaped, our
Speaker 3: ankle bones sit lower, our instep is more curved, which
Speaker 3: affects how the lacing structure holds your foot in place.
Speaker 3: Our toes tend to curve up more, and our fifth
Speaker 3: metatarsal or the knuckle on your pinky toe, jets out more.
Speaker 3: And women are also more prone to bunions and there's
Speaker 3: a lot of history.
Speaker 2: With women in Achilles injuries.
Speaker 3: So when we design this shoe, it was very much
Speaker 3: taking those anatomical needs into consideration as well as how
Speaker 3: do we create less impact on the female body for
Speaker 3: joints and the thought of do we really need a
Speaker 3: carbon plate, which was one of our hypotheses at the beginning,
Speaker 3: and if we didn't do a carbon late because we
Speaker 3: wanted to enter with a really technical shoe. So we
Speaker 3: picked a niche group of the women's market that would
Speaker 3: be the group behind the elites and a marathon. They're
Speaker 3: running three or more times a week. They have a
Speaker 3: rotation of shoes and they're part of the run community.
Speaker 3: Participating in races are important for them.
Speaker 1: Why start with them?
Speaker 3: I felt that shoes that were coming out that were
Speaker 3: geared towards women were watering down the tech. And we
Speaker 3: are smart, we are intelligent, we are competitive. There's no
Speaker 3: need to shy away from technology and performance. And we
Speaker 3: felt that if we entered at that level of the market,
Speaker 3: we could prove credibility, prove product quality and our ability
Speaker 3: to build shoes, and then introduce shoes that would be
Speaker 3: more democratic, which is what we're working on now.
Speaker 1: Wow, what impact do you think you could have or
Speaker 1: the shoe market could have if they were to have
Speaker 1: proactively addressed some of these issues.
Speaker 3: Oh, man, I think you'd see women in sport longer.
Speaker 3: I you know, I think I think from what I'm
Speaker 3: seeing and what I'm hearing, there's another downturn of women
Speaker 3: falling out of sport as they age, and the number
Speaker 3: of women that I know and that I read of
Speaker 3: with feet issues that get exacerbated during perimenopause and menopause.
Speaker 3: It affects your ability to continue to participate in sport,
Speaker 3: and if you're cutting that short, you're also probably cutting
Speaker 3: some of your social and community short. Because if sport
Speaker 3: has been a big part of your life. Usually it's
Speaker 3: part of your social fabric, whether it's run clubs or
Speaker 3: tennis is a big part of my life and the
Speaker 3: women I play tennis with. And if all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I'm having a lot of foot pain and I can't
Speaker 3: do that, not only am I missing it on the
Speaker 3: mental and physical benefits, but my whole social being is.
Speaker 2: Going to get stifled.
Speaker 1: It changes.
Speaker 3: So I think it really you know, I really do
Speaker 3: think a lot about longevity in this and I think that, yes,
Speaker 3: there will be performance benefits. Yes, I think women probably
Speaker 3: would be more injury and pain free earlier on, but
Speaker 3: I think the whole picture leads to longevity.
Speaker 1: I usually work out with a trainer. It's the one
Speaker 1: thing I won't give up. Yeah, And you know, when
Speaker 1: you start with a new trainer, they always say, okay,
Speaker 1: what are your goals? And they see like a young woman,
Speaker 1: and they expect me to say, like tone or weight
Speaker 1: loss or whatever. Yeah, And ten out of ten times
Speaker 1: I say longevity. I want to be ninety years old
Speaker 1: and planking and doing yoga, yes, and cycling and I
Speaker 1: want to have mobility. And they're like, ah, it's a
Speaker 1: little interesting, but I love that that's your goal With
Speaker 1: these shoes, I feel so aligned.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think it's you know, I've watched the Blue
Speaker 3: Zones on. I don't think it's a a mystery why
Speaker 3: tennis is what the number one sport right now for
Speaker 3: longevity between the physical and mental benefits as well as
Speaker 3: the social component. It's really hard on your body, like
Speaker 3: the every sport has different places about being hard on
Speaker 3: your body, but the lateral movements, the pounding on your
Speaker 3: feet and the fact that it's still up there as
Speaker 3: something that will help you live to be a centurion.
Speaker 2: That social piece is huge.
Speaker 1: Do you think about centurions? Yeah, me too, Yeah, I do.
Speaker 3: I find it fascinating or fascinator the you know the
Speaker 3: other piece I found fascinating just to dive for a minute.
Speaker 3: It was like the hill climbing and the walking and
Speaker 3: how that makes a difference.
Speaker 1: Tell me, I don't know that. I focus on sleep
Speaker 1: all the time. So they all sleep at least seven
Speaker 1: and a quarter hours a night. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It was a sense of purpose, okay, which I think
Speaker 3: is so important and it goes to you know, this
Speaker 3: journey and things that are beyond the financial because it's
Speaker 3: so important to have purpose in your life. And they
Speaker 3: speak about the consistency and having these stories where people
Speaker 3: are living in villages or towns where there's a lot
Speaker 3: of uphill and so they might not be working out,
Speaker 3: but they are climbing and to do.
Speaker 2: That you need.
Speaker 3: It builds your balance, it builds your strength, it means
Speaker 3: you're less prone to falls. And then they talk about
Speaker 3: this social and the community aspect. Yeah, so I think
Speaker 3: about that a lot.
Speaker 1: I love that you have a prototype, if you have.
Speaker 3: A shoe, I have a shoe. I know, it's exciting.
Speaker 3: It really is crazy. I remember on the first Phrotos
Speaker 3: arrived at our house, I was just like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: we actually.
Speaker 1: Made a shoe.
Speaker 3: Because it took about a year and a half two
Speaker 3: years from the research and the design for a shoe
Speaker 3: to arrive, and it was a bit mind blowing. And
Speaker 3: then when we actually started selling shoes, it was crazy.
Speaker 3: And even now when I see people wearing them, I
Speaker 3: want to go up to them, which is kind of
Speaker 3: creepy and I wouldn't do it, but I feel like, how.
Speaker 2: Did where did you get your shoe? What do you think?
Speaker 1: Can you give me?
Speaker 2: Can you give me some live feedback?
Speaker 3: So I always want to know what people think too,
Speaker 3: because we're you know, getting feedback from the people wearing
Speaker 3: our shoes is a huge part of what we're doing,
Speaker 3: is we as we build a brand. But yeah, it's
Speaker 3: it's kind of surreal to see a product.
Speaker 1: So you see people in the wild wearing them. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's really exciting.
Speaker 2: It's really excited.
Speaker 3: Someone sent me a picture once they were at a
Speaker 3: run club in New York and they're like, oh, so
Speaker 3: they took a picture and they're like, live from the
Speaker 3: streets of New York. He is in the wild, And
Speaker 3: I was just like, that is so mind boggling to me.
Speaker 1: It's so exciting to see someone use something that you've
Speaker 1: built and have put so much love into. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the feedback been so far?
Speaker 2: The feedback has been overall good. It's a lot of.
Speaker 3: Feedback around injury relief and pain relief, which I was
Speaker 3: not expecting the amount of feedback on that, and a
Speaker 3: lot of feedback around around the heel cup and people
Speaker 3: really appreciating a lot of thought went into this heel cup,
Speaker 3: both the shape of it, the fact that it's flexible,
Speaker 3: it doesn't put pressure on your achilles, and so to
Speaker 3: have that come back as a both from store owners
Speaker 3: and customers as what they're really appreciating.
Speaker 2: You know, I think we have some work to do
Speaker 2: on the width.
Speaker 3: And it is a firm shoe, so in an era
Speaker 3: of max cushion, you know, this was meant to be
Speaker 3: part of someon rotation, not your shoe for everything, and
Speaker 3: so we need to come up with a more cushioned.
Speaker 2: Option as our next offering. And so that's what we're
Speaker 2: working on.
Speaker 1: It's twenty twenty four and I often think about sexism.
Speaker 1: It's part of my job, right. It's the lens through
Speaker 1: which I see the world. I see the world through
Speaker 1: a female lens, but I see people's eyes glaze over
Speaker 1: a little bit. It's not fun to talk about. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it almost comes off complainy or why, like, yeah, people,
Speaker 1: there's like a victim thing about it. You describe your
Speaker 1: personal experience with sexism and as you started to pursue
Speaker 1: creating this shoe, can you share what happened?
Speaker 3: So I've worked in a lot of industries, mining, forestry,
Speaker 3: I've often finance tech where I'm I've often been one
Speaker 3: one or if one of two women, if not the
Speaker 3: only woman. I got kind of used to that in
Speaker 3: a way that maybe isn't healthy early in my career,
Speaker 3: but I never was treated differently and I never was
Speaker 3: treated in a way that I felt less than my counterparts,
Speaker 3: which I appreciated. When we started HADAS and we started
Speaker 3: the capital raise process, I think it was one of
Speaker 3: the first times that I felt treated differently as a
Speaker 3: woman in what I was learning about the industry and
Speaker 3: how it existed today, and both from the percent of
Speaker 3: money that flows to women as a total of the
Speaker 3: plot of venture capital money it's under two percent.
Speaker 2: That blew my mind, almost more.
Speaker 3: So than the shoe design, because I was like, it's
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four. Women are accomplished in business, Why why
Speaker 3: aren't they being funded? And then I was learning more
Speaker 3: about the type of questions and how when you go
Speaker 3: into an interview raising money, the questions that are asked
Speaker 3: to women are often very different than the questions asked
Speaker 3: to men, and you're often really asked to prove yourself
Speaker 3: to a different degree. And as someone who has had
Speaker 3: a successful career and for the most part been rewarded
Speaker 3: from merit and what I've been able to build to
Speaker 3: have that, I felt like it was not considered as
Speaker 3: part of this process.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: And that in my mind I equated it to the
Speaker 3: nineteen fifties and going to get a car loan and
Speaker 3: needing your husband to be there to sign for the
Speaker 3: car loan.
Speaker 2: Bringing a man into your.
Speaker 3: Capital raised process increases your likelihood of funding from two
Speaker 3: percent to thirty percent?
Speaker 1: What from two to thirty Yeah. You know. I've had
Speaker 1: people sit in this chair and talk about funding, and
Speaker 1: a lot of times they say that the questions they're
Speaker 1: asked as women are about proving why this will work, yes,
Speaker 1: versus they ask men right about the vision of this
Speaker 1: or I did not know that bringing a man into
Speaker 1: the equation changes at that drastically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I was doing it a lot on
Speaker 2: my own.
Speaker 1: Now Kyle is coming, Kyle, you're the right gender. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you need.
Speaker 2: To be on some of these calls.
Speaker 1: Wo. Yeah. So have you been able to overcome this
Speaker 1: finance obstacle? Do you have investment yet?
Speaker 2: No, we don't know.
Speaker 3: We're still very much actively looking and pivoting as we
Speaker 3: go to adjust and keep headahs very much moving forward.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we're hopeful that we'll be able to raise money
Speaker 3: in the in the next six months. And you just
Speaker 3: there's good days and bad days, and you just keep
Speaker 3: moving forward.
Speaker 1: Head As is named after your two girls. Yes, as
Speaker 1: a mother, how do your daughters influence your particular passion
Speaker 1: for creating running shoes specifically designed for women?
Speaker 3: You know when so I was having foot pain, my
Speaker 3: kids were nine, and we started. I read an article
Speaker 3: and I think it was in New York Times.
Speaker 2: I can't