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Full Transcript:

Menopause: You’re Still Hot: It May Now Just Come in Flashes, With Catherine Balsam-Schwaber

Note: This is an original transcript–edited for sense, length, and clarity.  If you have any questions or concerns, please email our host, Doria Lavagnino, at doria@sheventurespodcast.com.

00:01.24 Doria: This guest is one of the 2.2 percent of women who successfully raised venture capital. In June, she closed a seed round of $4.5M Equally noteworthy, she raised capital to scale a wellness platform called Kindra, for women going through menopause, an often overlooked market. Catherine Balsam-Schwaber,  welcome to She Ventures.

00:31.58 Catherine Thank you so much.

00:57.87 Doria: The fact that you are leading the effort for a product for women like myself is exciting.

01:05.94 Catherine: Yeah, it is. It's an exciting chapter in my life I have to admit.

01:11.55 Doria: Before you were CEO of Kindra you had a 20 +/- year career as a veteran of marketing in a diverse group of well-known brands: Mattel, NBC Universal, MTV, and for those of us who remember AOL and Time Warner. What  skills do you think you acquired as a marketer that are helpful running a startup today?

01:36.72 Catherine: Yes.

01:44.11 Catherine: Really.

01:50.24 Catherine: That is a great question. You know my entire career has been fueled by a passion to understand how people make choices. Even in my early days I worked in politics and when I started that work right out of college I thought that I wanted to be in policy. I thought I wanted to define policy and help make change in society. But what I realized quickly was that it was the power of finding ways to effectively communicate policy or product. Fast forward into marketing but it was so important to understand the motivations of people and often women because many of the businesses and the products that I have been drawn to are focused on women and I have this deep passion for understanding what people need, and what motivates them, and then trying to match that up with solutions to be created to serve that customer. 

Throughout my time working 20 years is the greatest thing that I learned in many different formats that I have applied here where I really am so passionate about serving people on their menopause journey. 

But from the point of view of trying to understand how to help in so many ways, right? That it is physical and emotional and affects your whole person. And so how do we think as a business and as a leader about serving a woman's whole journey at this phase of life right? So all of that kind of culminated in this role where I'm so fortunate to be able to…

04:07.83 Doria: Here here.

04:19.35 Catherine: Think about it all day long now.

04:19.64 Doria: What you said is true and lost upon many entrepreneurs if they haven't learned this lesson already. You can have an idea, but if you haven't validated it –the pain points or the needs of your market– it's going to be difficult to get it off the ground. The fact that it’s in your DNA is helpful.

04:40.41 Catherine: Yeah.

04:52.76 Catherine: Definitely It makes it easier when you can align your personal passion or intellectual passion to the work that you're doing because it opens up a lot of possibilities.

05:09.40 Doria: A hundred percent That's why I do SheVentures. I've never asked someone to give their elevator pitch before but I thought I would take the opportunity. Can you give us an elevator pitch for our listeners of Kindra.

05:12.48 Catherine: Ah.
05:26.73 Catherine: Yeah, Kindra is a health and wellness business for women on their menopause journey. We offer estrogen-free essentials to support your changing body above and beyond the products that we offer. We're focused on supporting women finding information and education about all the aspects of menopause as well as supporting a community of women who are going through something similar and ultimately making sure that you get solutions that work. They might be our solutions, or they might be other solutions that we don't offer, but we want to be guiding you through this journey and acting as your partner.

06:27.51 Doria: Community is something overlooked and so important. Is there a significance to the name Kindra?.

06:35.44 Catherine: Yeah, it’s inspired by the idea of kindred spirits. It is how we think about community that is the heart of everything. We recently started this program called couch conversations.

06:40.58 Doria: Okay.

06:54.47 Catherine: …and it's born out of the idea that since the early days of sewing circles women came together in groups to have conversations that ultimately lead to significant changes in culture,  laws and regulations. The support that we can find in each other through our own words and our experiences can't be replicated in other ways, so community takes on a lot of different forms but it's about…

07:23.40 Doria: So true…

07:31.85 Catherine: …listening to other women's stories and then being brave enough to share your own.

07:36.73 Doria: I love that. Menopausal health starts for listeners who who don't know when a woman stops menstruating for 12 consecutive months. That's how it's defined. However, as we all know, we're all individuals. We go through varying degrees before we're considered menopausal.  I found it interesting that the Female Founders Fund –one of your investors– did a study and found that this is a $600 billion spending opportunity which is amazing to me because such a large addressable market has historically been  so overlooked. Why do you think that is?

08:16.16 Catherine: Yeah, yeah. Well menopause is the double whammy of ageism and sexism In my mind it's simple because there's a negative connotation to aging especially for women. A lot of what's happening in your changing body around menopause is related to fertility and sexuality. We don't want to talk about that and also there is this underlying notion that as the woman I'm supposed to accept this and this is the new normal. The lack of innovation and investment to support women's health over age 45  is seen clearly in menopause.  For decades there was only one solution…

09:51.19 Doria: Yes, yes.

09:51.26 Catherine: which was hormone therapy which has come a long, long way in and of itself, but that was seen as the only solution for some of the challenges that you might face in your body. Now, we're turning to the investment community, right? It's really the venture community in so many ways that has invested in these new products and businesses to find pathways for women to find solutions that work for them. Whether they are hormone solutions or non-hormone solutions.  The reason  we focused on estrogen-free and hormone free was because we wanted them to be as accessible as possible, right? Everybody can use them. You can use them if you are taking hormones or not. We are trying to build a suite of products that are available and effective. You know, scientifically backed, and  a decade ago, I don't think you would have been able to get investment  to do this kind of development. We are fortunate to be in this moment where we can really be experimenting and partnering with lots of development organizations to be able to bring these products to market.

11:21.39 Doria: It is an exciting time. You're so right that it has been ignored and one of the things that you said earlier about ageism is something that I notice in the media.  Even with nuanced things like when I asked someone to create a logo for my podcast, and none of the women were over 30, and I said, “You've got to have someone with gray hair. We have to represent all women because I'm fifty one and I haven't ceased to exist. In fact I think I'm better than ever.  That’s the first thing I want to say and then second.

12:01.38 Catherine: Yeah.

12:19.53 Doria: Regarding H.R.T or hormone replacement therapy for a lot of women it’s a good solution.  I tried it and it made me bat-shit crazy. Ah, it was awful for me, so I think the idea of having a non-hormonal.solution is interesting.

12:41.20 Catherine: You are right. There are some women who respond well like with any medical treatment, right? There are some people who respond incredibly well and there are some who don't and there are some who will find themselves somewhere in between. As I said, we have our community members who are using some level of hormones or hormone creams and alternate with our products because it just helps to keep them more in balance. But ultimately this comes back to education and information, which is,  “How do you figure out how to make choices when so many doctors are not educated to inform you?” Maybe that's the first place that you would start, but maybe it's not.

13:35.84 Doria: Yeah, right.

13:37.39 Catherine: And then you're going to Dr. Google to diagnose what's happening to you. I think your point about the definition of menopause … we have women coming into our community in their late thirties who are talking about seeing changes in their in their bodies because this is  a hormone journey. As women we have been on a hormone journey almost our entire lives and that we know how to manage our body often as it relates to hormones. This is a shift that is sometimes more dramatic for some versus others but it's still a progressive shift in your body. So the earlier you begin to understand what's happening and it's part of your journey as a woman I think the easier it is to begin to find solutions and think about the changes that you might need to make to keep yourself feeling amazing. I think that's part of it, right? The  problem with the stigma and the silence around menopause is that we don't understand that it's something that could  begin to happen earlier because we think of menopause as a thing that happens to a much much older woman. We have to align our chronological clock to our vision of what we think menopause is, if we think about it at all.

15:33.69 Doria: So true and and it goes back even to the definition that I gave earlier which may not be accurate if we start to look at menopause more. One of the things I noticed when I went onto your platform is a quiz that women can take. And to your point because it's so individual what people experience I think it does a really good job of helping a user figure out where she might be in her journey and.

16:04.92 Catherine: Um, yeah.

16:09.93 Doria: What I wondered is by now I'm sure you've had a lot of people take the quiz and I'm sure you look at the data anonymously. Are there certain things that stand out to you that you didn't expect?

16:18.23 Catherine: Yeah, yeah.

16:25.95 Catherine: Well I mean not that I didn't expect but there are some resounding  concerns for women  around the physical changes in your body and your weight. We can't get away from that even as we age so that is often a prominent thing that women are concerned about and being able to manage. One that does come up a lot is sadness that women often feel. They are sad during this time and which I think goes back to the education, information, community and choices. I think some of the sadness comes from feeling a sense of isolation and that you are in a world where no one has ever talked to you about menopause and still nobody is talking about menopause and you know often women talk about feeling that their body is betraying them.

Not having go-to resources at your disposal whether they are another person or a place online.  I think it can exacerbate some of those feelings that can be hard to manage and that's why we think so much about the whole person because it isn't just physical. It's also an emotional journey. One of the things from my own experience but from a lot of women I have spoken to genuinely feel like they're in the best.

18:01.43 Doria: Right.

18:17.74 Catherine: …time of their lives, right? You have to do the work for yourself which is a hard thing to do right? You have to find solutions and even in a world where ten years from now when menopause science is incredibly well-funded right? You'll still have choices and you'll have to work through for your body what really works best for you.

18:41.98 Doria: Yeah, when you talk about sadness I was thinking about myself and also about something that you touched on earlier about ageism and women. We are often defined– I think it's slowly changing– by your fertility.

18:57.42 Catherine: Yeah.

19:00.91 Doria: I do remember when I I stopped menstruating. I was like, “ Oh thank God I'm done with that.” But I also felt a tremendous sense of loss because part of my identity was wrapped up in the fact that I'm a…

19:11.19 Catherine: Yeah.

19:19.60 Doria: …mother.  I chose to be so that's not necessarily true for everyone. But yeah, there are so many things that can go into that sadness if that's what someone feels.

19:26.91 Catherine: Yeah, yeah, and when I think about many of the conversations that I've participated in with groups of women that acknowledge women are feeling sadness. And someone else says exactly the same at the moment right? So I felt that, too, makes it less like I'm sad and I'm the only one having this feeling of sadness. You know I think that it's natural. I like to think of it as a midlife awakening, but there is this physical reminder that we are getting older and…

20:19.62 Doria: Yes, right? yes.

20:22.45 Catherine: …and you can't get around it – that's why you have to do the work and say okay, well this is happening and I'm going to, as  I did every month, tackle this head-on and figure it out. What works best for me for right now and that's going to be changing too. When you think about the overall menopausal journey – women are living longer, working longer, and having children later–so the entire idea of what menopause is today is so different than the generations that came before us. And certainly the generations that will come after us. I don't think they will have this kind of stigma. It certainly will disappear I'm pretty sure,  but it will feel like a normal thing that you talk about as a woman you know, getting tips from your friends and managing life.

21:38.87 Doria: Yes, yes.

21:39.17 Catherine: Like pregnancy was or having your period when you were 15 and  at the beach trying to figure it out. You know what to do about it.

21:46.99 Doria: Yes yes I have two daughters and I've been reliving some of those experiences recently. So true community is key and I did see a lot of that on your platform as well. As a content creator myself,  solid educational information and I think ‘solid’ is important to underline because to your point people do go to Dr Google. We all do. There are some…

22:20.22 Catherine: Yep.

22:25.30 Doria: …poorly written, researched or fallacious things online and so knowing that you're getting quality information is important.

22:31.21 Catherine: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that that is one of our major tenants. We work with many healthcare providers on the content that we create and pride ourselves on making sure that we have the facts correct. We have an incredible woman who's the head of product development who has a deep science background herself and she's really led the charge on a lot of our educational content which has been amazing.

23:04.13 Doria: Fantastic.  Getting back to you, I was piecing together, not Dr Google, but now Private Eye Google.  No, I don't want it to sound creepy in that way. Whatever information that I find when I research my guests. The company was initially in an incubator as a part of Procter & Gamble Ventures and then you were brought in to be the CEO.

23:30.46 Catherine: Yep. The initial real marriage was between M-13 Fund which is a well-known fund and…

23:42.79 Doria: Is that right? okay.

23:59.62 Catherine: …Procter & Gamble Ventures with the idea of commercializing a small line of products the team at P & G developed. I think it was exciting –I happened into the middle of this union if you will– to become the third leg of the stool and build the brand and the business around products that were safe,  effective, and had a ton of consumer and product testing prior to making them available.  It  speaks to how we think about Investing more and in different ways in categories like this for underserved consumers. That was important, especially as we got started because it gave me a tremendous amount of confidence…

24:57.50 Doria: Yes.

25:13.42 Catherine: … I knew that once people had a chance to try the products that they would work and that we could be offering solutions from the moment we opened our doors.

25:27.48 Doria: Yes, and also as a name I mean Procter & Gamble is as safe as it comes in terms of products. It’s hard though because you came from more of a big company culture. A lot of red tape at least from my own experience. What was it like going from a big company to lead a scrappy startup?

25:49.16 Catherine: Yeah. You know, it was such a confluence of circumstances. I had been in this magnificent big company game for some time and I was ready to pivot myself. It was right before the pandemic, Um, and I was turning fifty and I just felt like…

26:20.86 Doria: Yes I know I noticed that.

26:32.74 Catherine: …I wanted to focus on something that was back to my roots. When I worked in politics I worked on health care reform–it was my passion– and I was looking for a way to focus on access to healthcare and wellness for women.  Coming into this felt like it was calling me right then and there. Right at the moment I was in for myself and for the business. That's part of the entrepreneurial journey right? It is something that you feel inside like it must be done.  I felt it was destiny.

27:35.51 Doria: And so how with that in mind that it's mission-driven for yourself and I would think for others in the company. How would you describe the work culture at Kindra?

27:48.91 Catherine: Well, we really love each other. Ah,  when they listen to this they will be laughing but it's a little creepy how much we love each other. We are. nine people strong right now. For a long time,  we were five and I think that the satisfaction of delivering on the mission… We are all very mission-driven people. The satisfaction of delivering on the mission is inherent to who we are. I also think that you know we started in an all virtual world and I've never built a team like that. I was the woman who was in the office all the time.

28:33.56 Doria: Yes, yes.

28:46.72 Catherine: I traveled all over the world.  I was away from my kids and I had a lot of support. When all this started there was, you know, no nanny, nobody helping with the laundry.

28:59.13 Oh that's right? yeah. [because of the pandemic, but SheVentures recognizes this is many working mom’s reality with or without a pandemic]

29:05.13 Catherine: I mean there still isn't, right? It's a startup, but I had my kids at home. So when I first started, it was me in the living room with my kids on either side..

29:22.71 Doria: Yeah.

29:24.53 Catherine: thinking this was only going to be a two-week gig. Two weeks of us at home like this and then everything would go back to normal right? And so I think that everybody in the company was facing that challenge in different ways of not only…

29:28.84 Doria: Right.

29:43.70 Catherine: …trying to figure out what was happening around us but also building our business. I think that that gave us a sense of closeness because we were together all the time and we were the only people that we saw.

29:59.75 Doria: Yeah, I know I never thought of it that way. It's interesting because the media is so focused on the negative right, which is remote working. How do you manage your employees? It's so difficult,  but I've never heard someone say it–it’s.

30:03.42 Catherine: Um.

30:08.61 Catherine: Yeah.

30:19.30 Doria: …beautiful and refreshing that you were in a mission driven company with women who you know are in the same situation as you in terms of being a mother, certainly dealing with household stuff and trying to build a business.

30:36.96 Catherine: Yep.

30:38.86 Doria: That's a lot for anyone.

30:40.78 Catherine: Right? Yeah, and so I think that that was part of having our mission. I don't want to speak for them, but in retrospect– I think having our mission helped us stay focused on something other than the craziness of the world. It gave us a real focus on trying to help the women that we could.  Customers who were impacted financially by Covid – making sure we were supporting women who needed us. You know in the moment and taking extra time with people on customer service calls because sometimes they would call and want to talk.

31:28.13 Doria: Yeah.

31:35.48 Catherine: I think we felt deeply with the women who were part of our community and it made our sense of mission even more powerful.

31:47.63 Doria: Community during a pandemic. It's so hard to know how things will shake out in terms of growth.  How did Kindra grow? 

31:54.31 Catherine: Ah, yeah, a lot.  I mean we've been growing a lot. We've been growing fast and in different ways. It's interesting like many direct-to-consumer businesses,  we were concerned –as the world was returning to quote unquote normal– about what would happen and nothing has changed except that we find women gathering together more which is fantastic. We're thinking about how we can support women in real life as opposed to just online. That's the shift that we're making but…

32:44.59 Doria: Yes, yes.

32:49.28 Catherine: Ultimately we haven't seen a difference in our business. Some of the questions and concerns that we get are different. Our number one selling product is a vaginal lotion for vaginal dryness.

33:03.52 Doria: Yeah I saw. It looks good.

33:08.75 Catherine: Yes, it's excellent,  but one of the things we hear more about is women dating again as it relates to vaginal dryness right? And especially older women which we love –older, all of us having sex is amazing. 

33:14.20 Doria: Yes it is.

33:20.42 Doria: Yes.

33:28.63 Catherine: That's a new thing that during the pandemic obviously wasn't happening as much. So, that's new and fun.

33:36.85 Doria: Of course, right? because people couldn't go out today at all. Yeah, but that is exciting. There’s the question I had asked initially about coming in as a CEO and that very often founders– and I'm not saying that's true in this situation– are usually the visionaries. The ones who start the ball rolling so to speak, but oftentimes don't have the skills or the interest To take the company to the next level. What are your thoughts about that?

Catherine: Well, in my situation I think it's a little different because we were so nascent. You know it was the beginning in a lot of ways. I often think of the company as children –whether I give birth or I adopt my baby– I love her the same. Being the CEO is a balance of imagining where we go in the future and managing the now. I was fortunate that I had the skill set to be able to apply to both.

35:12.21 Doria: Yes, yes.

35:21.37 Catherine: I felt from the beginning that I am Kindra and Kindra is me. I think it's a great question because sometimes I need people to help me get more perspective on the business. But to your point I'm acutely aware of it because I’ve  had a lot of experience.

35:28.90 Doria: Here here. That's interesting. Yes.

35:56.39 Catherine: Dropping into organizations or companies – in that moment – where  I was dropping in next to the founder. And how difficult that can be because as a company grows it changes so much.

36:04.62 Doria: Right.

36:11.12 Doria: It does change. Yeah the needs change and and and it makes sense.  I think  listeners  may not know.

36:15.77 Catherine: Totally change. Yeah.

36:26.62 Doria: It's such common practice – think back to even Facebook and Google –the founders were young and they came up with a great idea, but when it came to running the business they didn't have the experience so someone more experienced was brought in.

36:40.65 Catherine: Yeah, so I think that the birth of a company in general is complicated right? Being a CEO or a founder is about trying to build the best team to create the greatest chance of success for the business and that whether you are a founder/ leader or a founder/participant.  Right? Founders often change roles over time in a business right? It's having enough self-awareness to say…

37:23.46 Doria: Yes, they could be an advisor right.

37:35.65 Catherine: …this is the best role that I can play to support the future of the company. This translates into board members or investors over time as the companies grow and change. There's so many factors.  That's something I'm thinking about as we are growing so fast.  We're all at the beginning, we were doing everything and we have to grow beyond that and think about how we bring in people who specialize in different aspects of the business right? That's even part of it because if you were the founding copywriter. Um, then.

38:21.22 Doria: It's hard. Yeah, yeah.

38:29.51 Catherine: Right? And when someone else comes in it's hard to adjust. Part of the magic and the pain of starting from zero is being able to navigate and feel like you still want to participate in whatever role you're playing in the company. I think it's a challenge.

38:49.29 Doria: I would imagine as the CEO– I was thinking about what you said about the copywriter who has a real pride of ownership of the work that she does and her skills. But she might be better in another role [as the company grows] and as CEO that must be– I don't want to put words in your mouth– challenging to navigate those kinds of situations.

39:08.99 Catherine: Right.

39:21.52 Catherine: Yeah, as a manager.  I wouldn't even call it a CEO. As a manager those situations have always existed. I mean back to your original question of the skills that I can apply here are no different than the challenges I would confront in a growing department inside of a company.  Sometimes you discover that a person's magic power isn't in the job that they're in. As long as it feels like an opportunity to grow into the career path you imagined for yourself – or even if it isn't exactly what you imagined– that it's something you can embrace. In terms of career development it is so important to be able to say, “The thing I like and that I'm good at is where I should go as opposed to the imagined thing that I thought I was going to be right?” 

40:42.94 Doria: Right? Or that my parents thought I was going to be, or whatever the case might be.

40:53.92 Catherine: You know that the opportunity to lean in to to help people recognize that even if they were writing all the copy forever but what they are great at is making the ads…

41:10.90 Doria: Absolutely and going back to the platform…I had mentioned the quiz and women can go on on your website –which we'll mention at the end of the show– and take the quiz which I recommend anyone do who's listening.

41:16.99 Catherine: Yeah.

41:29.24 Doria: Walk listeners through the customer journey after the quiz. What can she do?

41:32.84 Catherine: Yeah, so one of the things about the quiz is that we feel it is important that we lead with education, so we try to deliver educational resources.

We have a blog that can be a fun educational rabbit hole. 

We also have community resources– either our Facebook community or connecting with other stories of women. One of the things about community– in my experience– is it doesn't have to mean that you are jumping into an actual quote unquote community right? A Facebook group that we try to reflect the stories of women in the blog as well. Women comment about the stories, so I think there are other ways to feel like you are supported in this experience which is important.

The third piece is  solutions that work.  For us,  from a product standpoint, we focused on what I would consider to be the most disruptive aspects of menopause for the majority of women: sleep disruption– because if you don't sleep everything sucks. Let's call it brain fog and fatigue. Being able to find more focus is another issue we hear women talk about all the time, hot flashes, and vaginal dryness.  Vaginal dryness is something that is experienced by between eighty and ninety percent of women. Many women never seek treatment for it because they think it's the new normal. So vaginal dryness is an important aspect of education, information, solutions and community for us because we want women to know that there are products out there that can support you on your journey.

We have continuing education for every member of the community through our email, and we try to focus on areas of top concern for you whether or not they're related to the products that we sell at the moment. We are creating more and more community tools for women to participate with us and then also expanding our service offerings as well to make sure we are addressing some of those top concerns that are not solved by product alone.

44:26.59 Doria: I love that and you know I did not realize that there were 34 different symptoms of menopause, maybe even more.  I wanted to ask what is the most popular part of your platform: is it the e-commerce, the community, the education, and the Facebook part? Is there one that is leading in terms of interest?

44:53.57 Catherine: Um, yeah I think it's hard to put them against each other. Our educational content is exploding– if you will–even  in terms of even organic engagement, so women are finding us more and more on their own. On the product side because our business is growing and we essentially use the proceeds of the product to help fuel the other aspects of our business.

45:28.45 Doria: Yes, yes.

45:30.59 Catherine: So that is important for how we think about our growth overall. But it's interesting to think about how all of those components are married together. Even in our new product development, we have been laser-focused on listening to our community about the most immediate gaps and trying to expand our product offerings, tied to the things that our community is asking for. It's hard to say what comes first. I mean the number one thing for us in terms of women telling us how much they love it is the quiz…

46:22.25 Doria: Yes, yeah.

46:24.88 Catherine: …and then the products because you know you're getting physical relief for hot flashes,  vaginal dryness or if you can find your keys every morning, right? Issues with focus. 

46:35.57 Doria: Right? Yeah, huge. So.

46:39.96 Catherine: Right? Huge So when you begin to feel that physical difference in your body that is a definite win.

46:44.70 Doria: Ah, absolutely and you wrote on the site and it's something that really struck me, “ Self-care doesn't just happen. We need to make it happen.” You were saying this in reference to the many roles that women play.

47:02.30 Catherine: Yeah.

47:02.30 Doria: …in their lives. So my question is for women and it's something I struggle with. Honestly I don't have the answer– who work long hours– they may have kids– they may not– they may be with a partner–

47:13.28 Catherine: Yeah.

47:20.50 Doria: …they may be caring for aging parents–They may not have the resources to outsource any of this. How is she going to find her time?

47:23.31 Catherine: Yeah, you know I totally agree with you because I am that woman right now. The unfortunate reality is you have to make…

47:38.72 Doria: Yeah, meet me too.

47:48.66 Catherine: …choices. What I do is I open up my day earlier right? That is the choice that I made and I mean interestingly so we've recently moved from Los Angeles to the east coast and. In that process I lost the power cord to my Peloton and I hadn't ridden it for three months because everything was so chaotic and I was not feeling great and…

48:19.32 Doria: Yeah.

48:27.40 Catherine: …I didn't feel like I could wake up early in the morning. I had too much going on. I work late. My clock has been changing a little bit too in my own menopausal journey.  I used to be able to wake up very early now I do wake up early but it's.

48:32.61 Doria: Yeah.

48:44.38 Catherine: Like at 4:30 in the morning. It's a little different right?  I changed my way of managing which is if I wake up with disrupted sleep often I get up and I work.

48:45.54 Doria: Right.

49:02.25 Catherine: After I bring the kids to school I work out when I first come home.  I ordered a Peloton cord on Amazon. Then I start working.  It's one of the things that I've talked about with the team. You have to make time to do the things that you care about even if it feels uncomfortable. I will never judge you for saying the best time for me to do my stuff is between– You know– 11 and 1.

49:36.30 Doria: Right.

49:39.70 Catherine: You should do it and block it out on the calendar if that will make you a better member of this team, a better member of your life, and you have to block it out. I have found it true for myself because if I allow everything to flow all the time I get lost in the flow.

50:01.11 Doria: Yes, yes I think it's such a great point and something I can't underscore enough. It happened to me recently and I love hearing how you described how you resolved it so eloquently. It is a matter of being intentional and making choices. I might spend thirty minutes less doing one thing but I'm going to replenish my fuel tank. It does empty.

50:39.33 Catherine: Yes, that is right and I think that's a part of the hormonal evolution. I think you know a lot of women experience more fatigue which is…I think about when I used to be able to get out of bed and work out at 5 o'clock in the morning.  I can't do it. My body hurts so I can't do it. That's my big menopausal symptom: I get achy, and I take…

51:05.90 Doria: Right.

51:18.54 Catherine: ...core supplements which actually eliminate it. When I wake up in the morning I'm more creaky than I used to be. I can't jump on a bike or go out for a run. I need more time to warm up my system. I had to find a way to change. It's not great because I'd rather come home and jump right on my computer and start meetings.  That feels more convenient for everybody if I'm available at 8: 30 but I say, “I have to do this otherwise it's not good for any of us,” and I know that it's hard. One of the things I gave up: I loved going to the supermarket and I stopped going and I started pickup.  I order it all online, drive over to the supermarket, and I pick up.  In my part of Connecticut it is free for pickup. So it  saves me that hour or multiple hours of going to the supermarket each week. In my head that was the balance I made was I would stop going to the supermarket.

52:21.75 Doria: So yes, yes.

52:31.19 Catherine: …and instead I would make it my own ritual time.

52:34.62 Doria: I love that.  We're almost at the end of the podcast. I wanted to just briefly ask you with more competitors cropping up what is your competitive advantage? What do you think makes Kindra stand out?

52:50.00 Catherine: I think it is our focus on science-backed information and products. I also think it's our authentic approach to connecting with our customers. Going back to my own personal passion of  listening and understanding what people need. For us to be able to solve their needs as much as we can will continue to set us apart from others. I often say that I don't think we have competitors because we're so individualized. I do think the idea that there are more women serving– more businesses serving –women in this later stage of life is amazing.

53:43.78 Doria: Valid. Yeah.

54:00.50 Doria: Yes.

54:02.38 Catherine: It’s not  limited to this thing called menopause but all of the things that are happening to our body because as estrogen depletes you have a greater risk of osteoporosis, but depression and anxiety. 

54:15.70 Doria: Yes, yes.

54:20.60 Catherine: I think the more we have collections of companies and we partner with folks who are growing into this larger category of supporting women in this phase of life. That is better for everybody – better for women, better for our business, and it's  such a great time to be able to lean into this stuff and see how many lives  we are actually having an impact on for the better.

54:56.37 Doria: Yes, ah I think it's so exciting and I was going to ask you where do you see Kindra in 3 years but when I listen to you talk about listening to your customer it seems like a silly question because while I understand you might have a vision, but It also depends on where your consumers lead you, right?

55:20.91 Catherine: That's exactly right.. It's like the career path conversation we're having.  It's very much that we want to go where we're needed and that's our plan.

55:31.90 Doria: Do you think that the data that you're collecting could be useful– anonymous and sanitized – for scientists or researchers? Do you think about that?

55:39.70 Catherine: Yes.

55:47.95 Catherine: Well, it's certainly helpful in understanding what this menopause journey is.  There is an opportunity to redefine the language we use around all of this. The boxes of peri-menopause, menopause, post menopausal seems like an artificial construction made by a group of male doctors a long time ago.

56:23.26 Doria: Yes, yes.

56:25.95 Catherine: It's a gradual process and that's part of the reason it's so challenging right? It isn't like we mark it as it's been twelve months since you've had a period, but honestly many women start to get you know erratic periods during this time. So do you even know when it was twelve months ago? A lot of women have no idea right? They stopped and never got it again. That part of what I can see even more clearly now is that…

56:44.71 Doria: Right? yes.

57:03.70 Catherine: Everyone's experience is different. Some women feel like it's starting in their thirties, some women are getting hot flashes in their seventies,  there are no boxes. It's your individual story that matters.

57:16.99 Doria: I love having heard your individual story. I love hearing about Kindra and how she is growing. Where can our listeners learn more about Kindra?

57:27.35 Catherine: Yes I love it.

57:33.52 Catherine: Yeah, please visit us at ourkindra.com which is the website and all of our social handles are also @ourkindra. We have the quiz  which is a great place to start as you mentioned. It’s very useful to take and learn a bit about what's happening in your journey.  All of our products are there and we have a lot of new programs coming this year and next year some new physical products and some new resources for women as well. Yeah.

58:11.44 Doria: Exciting. So I can't wait to see what comes next. Thank you so much for joining us today.

58:17.60 Catherine: Thank you so much. I really loved it.