So Daniella, tell us a bit about yourself and Yoppie.
I’m the Founder and CEO of Yoppie – a FemTech company that enables women to take control of their menstrual health. It’s my one and only experience in the FemTech world.
“a FemTech company that enables women to take control of their menstrual health”
Yoppie is a DTC subscription-based, organic period care and PMS solutions provider that uses smart tech to enable women to not only personalise and manage their menstrual care but also to better educate themselves while they do it. From convenient product delivery to content personalisation, we’re helping women to sync menstruation with the modern world using a tech-driven approach.
What motivated you to set up Yoppie?
Yoppie was born out of seeing the lack of innovation in the Femcare industry. We saw that period care products were not being designed with the real lives of today’s modern women in mind. They were inconvenient to buy, generically offered as one-size-fits-all, made from unhealthy ingredients, packaged unsustainably and offered no education beyond just the product.
The big brands you see in the supermarkets have been dominating this industry for decades, and for the majority of their reign have had little to no competitors challenging what they offer.
“And when there’s no challenge, there’s no need to innovate. And when there’s no innovation, consumers have no option than to stick to what they know.“
Which in this case means sticking to the period products their mum used or the products they were given when they got their first period.
It’s 2021 and we have everything from food to clothes on demand, it’s about time menstrual care had a tech upgrade too. It’s what women deserve and seeing that there is clearly so much work to be done is the biggest motivation.
As a company what are Yoppie passionate about?
At Yoppie we are incredibly passionate about disrupting the “one-size-fits-all” menstrual health care model, and ensuring that we aren’t harming the planet whilst we do it!
“we are incredibly passionate about disrupting the “one-size-fits-all” menstrual health care model“
Female health and its potential to blend with modern technology has been my obsession and my passion ever since I launched Yoppie with a simple 100% organic tampon subscription model in 2016, with the simple aim of helping women have more convenient and healthy options. Ever since then, we’ve been busy building Yoppie into what we believe is FemTech for the everyday woman.
What are your dreams for Yoppie?
I hope to see Yoppie making the concept of ‘personalised menstrual healthcare’ a mainstream concept globally.
However scaling globally as a FemTech company will come with cultural challenges as not every single culture approaches menstrual health in the same way, whether its’ products are used to how “hush-hush” periods are generally. We hope that we can respectfully enter new countries and find opportunities to bust taboos along the way.
What’s the most important lesson you have learned since starting your company?
The most important lesson I’ve learned is that it’s normal to fail and to pivot during your start-up journey. All the failed tests and the pivoting of strategy over the years has inspired me to understand every point of data we have deeply, even if one data point doesn’t feel significant – sometimes that’s the secret waiting to be solved. Finding those insights and using them provides me infinite amounts of motivation to keep going when things get tough.
“The most important lesson I’ve learned is that it’s normal to fail and to pivot during your start-up journey.”
There have been so so many pivotal moments in my entrepreneurial journey. I can’t only choose one, it would not be fair to the story of Yoppie! But if I have to choose one of the biggest, and maybe one of the most important moments for me personally, was when I walked into a board room full of investors, 32 weeks pregnant, and confidently declared “this will not be an issue.” And the investors agreed and signed the term sheet right there and then. I flew back home and that first round of funding gave me the opportunity to recruit a world-class team.
“I should help continue the narrative, like many other women before me, that we can do anything, whether we are pregnant or not!”
I think what pushed me through that moment was remembering how important it is to not let the fears and judgments of other people, people who had clearly formed their ideas of what being a mother means limit me in this situation. I should help continue the narrative, like many other women before me, that we can do anything, whether we are pregnant or not!
What is your FemTech Forecast for 2021?
“In 2021 we will see more innovative sexual health services launching.“
I love following the progress of Kama, with its mission is to transform how we experience pleasure and its role in our wellbeing founded by the brilliant female founder Chloe Macintosh. Seeing FemTech expand beyond just menstruation and fertility is exciting. Think about it, sexual wellbeing and fertility is not the only thing that defines women and their menstrual health.
