Episode Transcript

Julia Landauer 0:00 Julia, hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of if I'm honest with Julia Landauer. This week's guest is the incredibly cool, incredibly smart, incredibly accomplished, Amanda Calabrese. Now I'm going to preface this by saying that we have a lot of synergies. We are both former competitive athletes. We both went to Stanford. We both are operating in male dominated fields, and we both care deeply about women's hygiene and Femcare products, which is how Amanda became the CMO and co founder of Sequ,l a women's health company that's focused on product innovation addressing unmet needs of women. The company's first product a redesign of the tampon as the Sequel spiral tampon is FDA approved as a medical device, and features a proprietary spiral design that is engineered to be more fluid mechanically efficient, meaning it is designed to absorb more evenly and not leak before it's full, which, if you've used tampons, you know that that is an incredibly important feature, something that doesn't always work out in our favor and causes a lot of stress. Amanda was named to the 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 list. She represented the United States in the sport of Surf Life Saving she's a nine time national champion, and has the most wins in her event, which is beach flags for any person, male or female, in the history of life saving sport, in the US. What a badass. When not working on Sequel or competing, Amanda is searching for her next adrenaline rush, surfing, swimming and skiing in San Francisco, where she lives. I adored this conversation. I was so happy to be introduced to Amanda. I see so many similarities between her and myself. I really admire the mission driven nature of the products that she and her co founder have been creating. And as someone who is so big on women's empowerment, so much of that is just getting us to a level playing field and trying to alleviate some of the stress that's associated with some of the things that women uniquely have to deal with. And we talk about everything from starting up the company, how they got the idea, the R & D, how they are partnering and expanding their time at the Paris Olympics, recent partnerships, they've had what they're looking to for the future. We get into what it's like to be a woman seeking VC funding. We talk about the importance and the critical nature of storytelling, how that plays throughout our lives, and it's just so much fun. So I really hope that you enjoy this conversation with Amanda Calabrese, who is the CMO and co founder of Sequ.l Amanda, thank you so much for joining me on if I'm honest with Julia Landauer,

Amanda Calabrese 2:35 I am so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Oh,

Julia Landauer 2:39 of course, now we have a lot of synergies, right? We both were competitive athletes. Both went to Stanford. Both care deeply about women's health and feminine care and hygiene, and so it was just a matter of time before our path met, I think. And it's just so cool to see what you have done, and for some additional context for our listeners. For a long time, I have said that my dream sponsor would have been a tampon company, because a number of things. One, I I really care about destigmatizing and getting rid of the taboo and just normalizing, like women's health and menstruation and everything like that. I also thought it would be so audacious to put a big tampon on the side of a race car. Like, just from a marketing perspective, it seems cool. NASCAR has a almost 40% female fan base, so just kind of like, it seemed like it would be super cool. And like, I pitched it, I was able, for a few years period, to pitch some smaller companies, some global companies. It didn't stick. But that's okay. I think that the work you're doing is so cool. So anyway, I personally was really interested in talking with you. I think this is really exciting. And I think one thing that I read some in some press that you had was that you guys wanted to focus on revitalizing a quote, unquote sleepy industry, which is kind of what I want to jump into first so like, how did you come up with the idea to shake up the sleepy industry? How did you come up with the idea of redeveloping a tampon? And can you talk about the sequel shape and what makes it different?

Amanda Calabrese 4:15 So we actually started with our own experiences, right? I mean, similar to your athletic career, racing, and I'm sure you've had your fair share of of having your period, having to go out for a race, my co founder and I had these same experiences in our athletic careers, right? So I was wearing a red, white and blue bikini, going out and racing all over the world. I competed for the US life saving team for almost 10 years, my co founder played, do you all lacrosse at Stanford wearing a white Home Team skirt? And the idea for sequel came from those moments. And for Greta, it was, you know, her teammates yelling, can you check me? Like, can you can you look at my skirt? And you're like, supposed to be focusing on the game you're playing. But actually you're focusing on whether you have a red stain. And for me, it was like, I'm totally I'm competing against some of the best people in my sport in the world. I'm lining up at the beach. And instead of being like, Okay, what's my race plan? What am I doing entering the ocean? Where am I going? What are the conditions looking like? I'm like, Okay, what is my tampon doing? How long have I been wearing it? Do I trust it to hold up in this race? And that's the checklist I'm going through. It's not my race plan. And when Greta and I came together and realized that we had these shared experiences, we knew that we also had the expertise from our time at Stanford to think about a better solution. And so it really started with our own experiences as high level athletes. Now we were in the perfect environment to really see if we could make a difference. And we started more broadly with the period space and period category, right? Talking to people about what they were using. Were using tampons, pads, menstrual cups, menstrual discs, were really popular when we were starting the company, and we recognized everyone we were speaking to, or most people that we were speaking to were using tampons. And that was because we were speaking to a lot of very active women, a lot of people that were on our sports teams or people that we exercised with, and so we landed on re engineering, or at that point, attempting to re engineer tampon, because that's what most of the people we spoke to were using, and that's also 70% of us women report tampons as their product of choice. So that's what, where we could have the biggest impact on the market. Everybody was saying the same thing. My tampon leaks far before it's full. It's unreliable, it's uncomfortable. I pull it out, there's a red line down the side. The whole rest of the product is bare. I'm like, are you even doing your job right? And so we really wanted to focus on that, that failure, right? The product failure that causes the distraction whether the product's gonna fail or not. And so we, I mean, we discovered that vertical channels that are present on almost all of the tampons on the market are funneling the fluid away from the absorbent core, causing it to not absorb evenly, and then, in turn, causing the product to potentially leak before it is full. And so what we ideated at the D.School at Stanford, and what we ultimately ended up developing, is a helical spiral that goes around the outside of the tampon. This helps the tampon absorb more evenly, in stages, into Completion, without failing before it is full and it again, it helps prevent that premature leakage. And so the goal is to have a tampon that is more reliable, and the goal is to have a product that we all can wear, whether we're in sports, competing at the top of our game, or just going to yoga or walking on the street, having something that we can actually depend on and trust. And so we've it's been five years of developing that product since since we started at Stanford. But I mean, I couldn't be more proud to actually have the product out in the world today. It's, it's really cool to go from like, you know, dorm room sketch to, okay, this is actually real.

Julia Landauer 8:30 That is crazy. I feel like that's like the, like Stanford vibe, like Silicon Valley vibe, of like, the dream of that ideation to actual product, which I want to get to in a little bit. But I also just want to take a second to give some context for our listeners who have not used a tampon or don't have a period, right? Because, like, Yeah, I think what you talked about about the distractions that you then have to deal with when you should be focusing on whatever task is at hand, and this spans like competitive athletes, but also, like, you know you're not supposed to keep a tampon in for more than eight hours for risk of bacteria development and all that. And so, you know, if you're lucky enough to sleep more than eight hours, or don't have to do that like you have to think about it as it relates to when you're sleeping, or do you have to set an alarm early? Or, you know, if you have to fly when you have your period, like so, many different factors can affect the flow and the heaviness, and it could change. And if you're in a foreign environment, or if you're like in a different climate, or tropic like, it can impact your body. And so there are just so many times where you then have to think about that. And it's partially because there's still taboo, and people, for whatever reason, shame women about period stuff, and there's negative connotations with it. But it's also a public health thing, like it's not sanitary if you're, if anyone from any type part of your body is bleeding around other people, right? Like, that's, so it's, it's, I don't mean that in a negative way. It's just like, you know, there's a reason people have to put on gloves if they cut themselves when they're chefs, right? Like, you're not supposed to have that, you know, permeate other things. So it's just a constant. Uh, going on in the background, and so it can't, it's really, it can be really stressful, and especially for like, teenagers or people just starting like, it's, it's so different. So the work that you're doing is incredible. So jumping into the time at Stanford. So for those who don't know, the D.School, which stands for design school, is a really innovative, creative, resource-rich part of the school, which different majors can have classes in there different lectures. I clearly remember one class that I didn't take, but I read about just didn't work with my schedule. It was called Fail Faster. And the concept was, how you know when you're ideating, when you're problem solving, you want to not be super married to one single idea. And it's about having an idea, testing it, analyzing it, learning from it, adapting, evolving, changing your approach. Did you do a lot of that as you were coming up with the design and like, what did that look like?

Amanda Calabrese 10:56 Yeah. I mean, so much of it is iterating. I think the thing that's different for us is that we are a medical device, and so in the way that you can test different iterations of a software product or landing pages or things like that, we were very limited in what we could actually do from a like a physical prototyping perspective, because we are regulated by the FDA, and we are a medical device. We are a product that goes into somebody's body. Now what we can do is talk about the needs with our users, right? We can go and have endless conversations and collect as much user insight as we possibly can right talk to people about the period routines or period habits. What is something that is distracting you when you're preparing for your day, for your game, whatever you're doing, and so we spend a lot of time in what the D.school calls the need finding phase, so that we could really understand. You don't want to jump into a solution, right? I think very often we jump to conclusions, we make assumptions, and then we build a solution that is based on a wobbly tower of assumptions and opinions. And we want to make sure that any solution that we arrive at is grounded in the true needs of the users that we want to solve a problem for. And so we spent a lot of time on the need finding phase to make sure that we were actually solving a problem that people had, because if people were happy with their period products, then there would be no reason for us to innovate in the category. If people are happy with the performance of their tampons, then we wouldn't need a better tampon. But that wasn't the case. Yeah,

Julia Landauer 12:48 no, that. That makes a lot of sense. And then also, I guess, when you're going through that process, how do you know when you have, like, identified enough of a problem, like, how many people do you need to speak to? How many perspectives do you need to have before you're like, all right? This clearly has legs. Let's go with it.

Amanda Calabrese 13:05 I mean, when you start hearing, it's about pattern recognition, right? When you start hearing the same things over and over again, that's when you know that you have found something. And we kind of, like, we have different words for those, like, we're that's when you know you have a finding right, and when that finding leads to something that you can understand about this particular user or customer or population, that's when you've developed an insight. And so I think a line that I used before that I think is so was so resonant with us and our users, and ultimately resulted in this insight, this finding that we had was, I pull out my tampon, there's a red line down the side, and the whole rest of the product is bare. And we heard that over and over and over again by asking question, like, interesting questions about periods like you know, take me through your experience with your tampon. Take me through your routine. Walk me through step by step. So you put the tampon in, how long are you wearing it for? You're taking it out. What are you noticing when you take it out? There's a red line down the side. Okay, that's really interesting. And we collect all of these findings that we have. We keep hearing this over and over again, and the insight from that is that the reason, like the tampons are failing before they're full, because there's a line down the side, right, and that's really interesting. Well, why are tampons leaking before they're full and causing this premature product failure, and then, in turn, causing distraction. Oh, it's because there's these vertical the vertical channels are causing this red line down the side. Okay, that's the problem. Is that there are, there's this red line down the side, there are these vertical channels down the side. And that leads us to our solution, that, okay. How do we disrupt the vertical channels? How do we create something that is different from the vertical channels? And that's kind of like, how you get like, from like, a kind of a building block, like block by block by block. That's how you get to your solution. Instead of saying, Okay, everybody hates tampons, we should just design a new type of period product, right? Like, maybe that's somewhere we would have gone, but we spoke to our users and and they were very regimented in their period routines, and we didn't want to disrupt that. We didn't want to say, Oh, you don't like your tampon. Here's some new product that we invented that you're gonna have to learn how to use, and you're gonna have to trust us that it's gonna work and and you've never seen it before, we have to educate you on it, right? We actually just noticed that people were people were choosing tambons Because they were convenient, because they allowed them to move their bodies, exercise, go swimming, all of these things. It was very it's a very liberating product, but at the same time, it still had its constraints. And so how do we look at the constraints of the product, where the product may be lacking, and innovate there so that we can impact a huge market and a large amount of users,

Julia Landauer 16:16 right? And am I correct that a very large percentage of feminine like care users use the same type of product that they were taught to when they first got their period, like with their mom.

Amanda Calabrese 16:33 Yeah. I mean, it's it. It is a category that is so influenced by mom or by your big sister, or even from a sports like so many athletes talk about getting their first period when they're traveling with their team, and it's like the older girl on the swim team or the team captain on your lacrosse team is giving you a tampon and explaining to you how to put it in. So it's somebody, it's passed down. It is, it is knowledge that is passed down from somebody in your life that you trust

Julia Landauer 17:06 And that like carries such a psychological weight with it. I don't mean that in a negative way, but just like you're, you know, as you're going through this huge change in your body, like all of the chemicals in your body are changing when you're going through puberty and you're it's a fairly traumatic thing to experience for the first little while. I mean, it's so different and like, the comfort that comes with the initial like technique that you used. So I totally get that. So did you pretty much know by the time you graduated, or before you graduated, that you were going to pursue this entrepreneurial journey of trying to make this, this idea, come to life.

Amanda Calabrese 17:47 I think we didn't know how far we could take it, right? We, we had raised quite a bit of grant funding while we were at Stanford, and that was, it's such a benefit of being at an institution, like, like it is right? And also we were working on this project that a lot of people saw merit in. They saw the ability for impact in a category that hasn't seen a ton of innovation for a population that has been complacent for decades. So we went into the summer after graduation with grant funding. But I think we didn't know, you know, was this a fundable business? Were we going to be able to raise the capital that we needed to invest in the R & D and so the goal for the summer after graduation for Greta and myself was to go out and figure out if this was a fundable business, and so we use the grant funding that we had, the advisors that we had, to put ourselves in the best position, whether that be setting up R & D, doing initial research, interviewing candidates to do the R & D to work like institutions and and places that we could work with, putting ourselves in the best position to then bring in funding to kickstart a lot of the R & D, and we were able to get a term sheet and an offer for investment In the summer after graduation. And that to us, that I that to us, was the indication that people not only believed in the product and the potential for the product, but they believed in us. And that's so much of early stage startups is like, do I believe is the market big enough? Is this a problem that needs to be solved, and are these the right people to solve this problem? And so the ability for us to get an offer for investment a few months after graduating, really kicked off our first fundraise, which we did from friends and family and from some smaller VCs in Silicon Valley and San. Stanford associated VCs, and that allowed us to invest in R & D early on.

Julia Landauer 20:05 That's amazing, yeah, because the question I was going to ask is like, how do you determine whether or not it's a fundable initiative? And obviously, getting a term sheet is very clear indication. But is that the way that you, like, were actively pitching, and I have never attempted to pitch. I haven't had anything that is VC fundable. So I don't know the exact process, I understand it on a conceptual level, but, like, is that something that you guys actively went out and pitched, or did it kind of come to you through the initial research and, you know, initial funds grants that you were utilizing.

Speaker 1 20:36 We were going out and pitching. We had put together a pitch deck. We were pitching, you know, friends and family, angel investors, looking for introductions from people that we met through Stanford, people that we met through our past, like work experiences and and we were like pounding the pavement, like getting in front of anybody that we could telling anybody. I think so much of it is being confident in what you're doing. So when somebody says, Oh, what are what are you doing this summer? What are you doing after graduation, I am building a company where we are re engineering the tampon for the first time in 80 years. And there is power and there is confidence in that statement, and there's also commitment in that statement, because people want to fund and people want to fund a business where there are people that are committed to what they're doing, that believe in what they're doing, and they're confident what they're doing. And so I think something that Greta and I always said to ourselves that first summer is like, we're building a tampon we are building a tampon company. We are building a women's health company. And we would just like say it over and over again, because that was the like outward commitment and confidence that we needed to have going into every room.

Julia Landauer 21:58 I love that, and I gave me goosebumps, because you're so right that it's like, it's the self belief that, especially when you've put so much time in like, you earn it right like and you like, should have full faith in yourself. Understand it's a tough landscape out there, and nothing comes easy. But that's really incredible. Did you enjoy the pitching process, like the actual being in the room and pitching the product and why it was worth investing in.

Amanda Calabrese 22:24 I think that it can get exhausting. It's like very it's very tiring, like just to laugh after lap after lap, doing the pitching that being said. I love telling stories, and I love using storytelling as a way to connect with people. And I think that when you tell your story, when you find a way to tell your story that connects with people, and you can see it on their faces when you're telling your story, the story of the business, I think that that's, there's like, a little bit of magic to that that I do enjoy. And I think that it, it is rewarding when you see resonance in a room, right?

Julia Landauer 23:14 Yeah, completely. And I like, there are so many, again, so many synergies between us. Because I was going to say that with my, you know, sponsorship pitching, which largely was not successful over the course of my 10 years, because just you get so many more no's than yeses. Totally the creativity involved in telling that story. And to your point, that storytelling, and I love how you just said, like, the magic in that storytelling, it's, it's really addicting in a way, like it's so cool to know that you have that impact. So I'm really glad that you got to experience that as well.

Amanda Calabrese 23:48 Yeah, and I think so much of that, so much of that learning, so much of it, you're learning on the fly, right? You're doing this for the first time. You're like, I'm I'm trying to figure this out. But it was really cool for me to feel like a lot of the things that I the things that I was doing, actually were rooted in experiences that I had had as an athlete and, you know, also pitching myself for sponsorship opportunities and pitching I worked in, you know, hospitality, and I was, I didn't, I haven't had a very formal work experience in my life. I worked as a life card. I worked as a surf instructor where I grew up. I had a surf lesson, swim lesson business. And so much of having my own business was that was centered on the services that I was offering. Was pitching myself to people because they were paying for a service that I was providing. So my brand, my personal brand, in the way that I would tell my story, was inextricably tied to the services that I was. Pitching as my business in the same way that the personal brand that I had built for myself in the context of my sport, that's a story to tell as well. And so you kind of you're nervous, and I'm doing this for the first time. I have no idea what I'm doing, but then you get in the room and you start telling the story of the business, and business and yourself in the context of the business and what you're trying to build. And a lot of those learnings from my days having my search lesson business and my swim lesson business, they were coming back, and I was like, I have done this before, but in a different form, yeah, for a different outcome, right? Like, it's the same process. It's it's a similar These are similar lessons, and like, I can take the experiences that I've had, albeit not very standard work experiences, I can be effective in this room, even though I haven't had the fanciest internships or the most common work experience.

Julia Landauer 26:02 Yeah, no, totally. And I think that that that ethos is really relevant to kind of most people, because people have to kind of pitch themselves essentially, like, whether it's a job interview, if it's, you know, dating, whatever it is like when you are trying to build that relationship, your storytelling. And so I think that concept of leaning into all your past experiences and rooting what it is you're trying to get across in those personal stories and personal experiences is some of the most impactful ways to do that. So I think that's really cool. We're going to take a quick break, and then we're going to be right back with Amanda on if I'm honest with Julia Landauer.

We are back on, if I'm honest with Julia Landauer, with Amanda Calabrese, who is the co founder of Sequel. Naming something, naming a product, naming a service, a company, name is monumental. And my understanding is that Sequel is the current name, but it was not the original name. Can you talk a little bit about how you came to the original name and how you decided that it was time to change it?

Amanda Calabrese 27:11 We started out with a very funny naming history our so I talked about, I think I talked about this as a class project, right? So it started at Stanford as a class project. The original presentation had the name TamPro on it. Okay? Professional tampons. TamPro Like, and I think that was very like class it's a very class project name like, it's very it's slightly juvenile like it, but it, it was perfect for that moment in time. And I think it's important to appreciate like where you were in that moment in time and what we called the class project. But we needed to bring ourselves into a moment and a space where we had something that reflected the gravity and the expanse of what we wanted to build, and that was we want we are building, and we want to build a company that is introducing women's health products that have never been available because we haven't invested in them, we haven't innovated on them, and we want to create products that deserve better, right? Like they've always deserved better. We've been complacent about them, we've ignored them. These products deserve better, and so that's where Sequel comes from. Sequel is it's the tampon 2.0 it's the sequel that these forgotten products is, particularly the tampon deserved, and it's the next chapter of these women's health products. So that that's where that comes from, and we feel that's that's a much more accurate representation of the world that we want to build. I love to think about brand as like a world building exercise. Like your brand is a world. What is the world that you want to build? Well, we want to build a world where period, products, necessary products, essential products for women, are not being forgotten, and they're brought into their next chapter.

Julia Landauer 29:20 That's such a great and I think it emphasizes the holistic nature of your products, which are so important. I just said, so essential, so integral to the fiber of, you know, menstruating people's life, that it it carries the appropriate gravity, which I think is really cool from a logistics standpoint. Was it an early enough switch that you, like, didn't have to do too much on the consumer facing side? Or, yeah,

Amanda Calabrese 29:50 Yeah, yeah. That's, that's, that's right. I mean, we went through so many iterations of, like, what should our name be? How, like, what should we do? How should we change it? But we were still so early in R & D that by the time we changed the name it was, it was easy to do. I think we're very thankful that we did that now that we're consumer facing and looking at the way that we show up with certain partnerships and announcements and like I think that it's, it's very fun to have a name that is very different from the category and have it be a lot like, you know, we all know that the tampon brand names that all sound similar, and we expect those types of names to be a part of this category. And I think it's really cool when we see one of our partners putting out an announcement, like, we're announcing our partnership with sequel, and people are like, what is that I don't know? Like, and then reading about it, understanding the very logical and I think cool reason why we are named the way that we are it, I it's very fitting.

Julia Landauer 31:00 That's so true, and I am going to come back to kind of being a CPG company in a second, but since you've been talking about partnerships, I do want to discuss some of the very, very cool partnerships that you have had. So first, about a month ago, you announced a partnership with Stanford athletics, which is the first of its kind, and so can one as a Stanford grad, also, I just think that's really cool. It's so fun to see the progress and the reinvestment back in students that are really making or former students who are really making a change in the world. So can you talk about that?

Amanda Calabrese 31:35 The Stanford partnership feels just like your goal, to have a tampon on the side of your car, right? It feels like one of those partnerships that is groundbreaking, and I think will be the beginning of a shift in what does it mean to have sponsors? What does it mean to do something that nobody has done before, but we should have been doing this whole time. And I'm so thankful to the Stanford athletics team, because they we met and there was immediate alignment. And it wasn't like, oh no. How could we make this work? I don't know this. We've never done anything like this before. It was immediate alignment, and it was we don't care that nobody has done anything like this before. We don't care that there's no playbook for this. We are happy to be the first. We are happy to do something that nobody else has done before. I make a statement. And so we announced last month that we are the tampon of Stanford athletics. It's the first collaboration between a talon company and an NCAA program ever, and obviously we wouldn't have wanted to do it with anybody other than Stanford athletics. My co founder got a played for the Stanford lacrosse team. So it's amazing to hear her talk about how meaningful it is that we'll now see SQL tampons in the lacrosse locker room that she used to be in.

Julia Landauer 33:12 That is so cool. Congratulations. I mean, that is so thank you. And I'm so glad to hear that it was a fairly streamlined process because of all the universities you would think that Stanford would be, like, innovative and open to try things. And so it's really cool to kind of, not only, I mean, I know this and you know this, but not only like talk to talk, but walk the walk on, on, all of the core values of the university. And so talk to me about some of your other partnerships, because you had a presence at the Paris Olympics. I just we want to hear all about and we want to fan girl over.

Amanda Calabrese 33:44 Yeah, we have had such a busy back half of 2024 this summer, we announced that we are the official tampon of the USL Super League, which is the newest professional women's soccer league in the US. We're really proud to partner with them, because they're building something that is incredible and that we I mean, we are partnering them from day one, and we're so excited to see them grow and grow with them. I mean, Stanford was is a highlight of this year, because that is so against the grain, and it's something that nobody's done before. We did go to the Paris Olympics. We were a part of the athletic power of she activation in Paris. We sampled with them. And Athleta is an incredible brand. It's, yeah, it's perfect brand alignment for us. Athleta has the most beautiful workout sets that I can wear to yoga. I can wear them out and about. I can wear them casually, but they're also being worn by Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles, who are two of their athletes, and they're the goats. So it's, it's a wonderful partnership for us, because it shows that you can, you can Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky can wear the same athletic workout outfit that you can wear to yoga or walking down the street in the same way that you can be the best athlete in the world and you still need a tampon that is reliable, in the same way that I need a tampon when I walk down the street, that's gonna be reliable for me. So I think that, like the versatility of both our product and athletics products for any type of woman is really important, and I love that alignment. What it was a surreal experience to be at the Olympics. We also had the opportunity to get some product out to some of our favorite team, USA athletes, prior to them being a part of the Olympics, and we saw, we saw a couple Instagram posts from some of our favorite athletes posting some of our merch. And so that was very cool. That's very, very cool, knowing that some of the best athletes in the world competing for the hardest, arguably the hardest, Olympic team to make, are recognizing our product, our brand like, and showing it to their audiences. It was, it was a dream. It was so, so cool. And then we also just, we just announced that we are the official tampon of Athletes Unlimited, which is the only professional lacrosse and professional softball league in the US for women. And they also have volleyball. They have basketball, and they're really pioneers in women's professional sports leagues. They have this, like very interesting League and game structure that's really exciting. And like, content oriented, action oriented, and like, really for the fans, so that fans can feel super close to their favorite players. Volleyball is one of the fastest growing youth sports in the US, and they've really made professional volleyball accessible for a lot of these young fans, and so perfect partner alignment there as well.

Julia Landauer 37:27 That's incredible. And something that I picked up as we've been talking, which I think is super admirable, is as you're talking about your product that you're building, and that's like, first and foremost, but you talk about, like, the importance of like, every step of the ecosystem that you are kind of serving, and I think that that's so important, and something that's overlooked a lot, and it's just, it's really like kudos to you, and I applaud you, because I think that, like the passion you clearly convey for women's sports and women's well being and the team dynamic, and, you know, being able to focus on the sport, it's like, it's so cool, like, this is this feels perfect. And so I just want to give that shout out, because I think it's really cool. Just throwing it back real quick before we take your next break with being a CPG. And obviously, there's so much that goes on behind the scenes, and you've talked about some of the things, like the name or like doing research and r & d and all that stuff. Were there any things that were particularly unexpected on the like logistical back end, behind the scenes, side of starting a consumer package good company?

Amanda Calabrese 38:37 I mean, everything is everything is unexpected and crazy all the time. I mean, we we spent five years in R & D making this, and it's funny, you speak to like CPG people, and they're like, that's forever. And then you speak to medical device people, because we went through the FDA. We're class two medical device. We're regulated by the FDA in the United States. You speak to medical device people, and they're like, you went from notebook sketch to an FDA 510 K clearance in four years. Like, that's crazy, right? So it's all about perspective. And so for us, it's like, you know, you speak to CPG people, and they're like, that's so long, that's in that's insane. And then the other perspective is that that was really fast, but there's so many challenges when you're building a physical product that you don't foresee when you're starting, there's everything from building and developing the product, getting a manufacturer that You trust and can rely on. It's It's like making sure that the quality of your product coming off the line is what you want it to be. Then once you get through that, it's the regulatory piece. When you get through that, it's the warehousing, the fulfillment, the logistics, making sure that our customers are getting their products. And then when the product gets to the customer. Customer. It's, are they happy with the product? What do they think about the product? What's going to get them to continue using our product? And then obviously, there's the whole marketing piece as well, which is like, what is the right audience for us to go after? How do we and I think for us, like we have the perspective that, you know, women's sports isn't just about people that play sports. It's not just about like the people watching women's sports are not just people that play sports. If, if the only people that watched the WNBA were people that played basketball, we wouldn't be seeing the explosive growth in fandom that we're seeing of that league today, right? And so we need to think about our customers as not only people that play sports, but people that watch sports. So there's that marketing component as well that we're working through and testing and figuring out,

Julia Landauer 40:48 yeah, and is it safe to say that like you were figuring it out as you go and learning as you go,

Amanda Calabrese 40:56 that's the nature of a startup, right? That's why, that's why we get our hands dirty and and we work on a small, scrappy team on really interesting problems that we want to solve, right? Yeah,

Julia Landauer 41:10 and I think that's an important flag, though, because I think, you know, especially, especially people who, like, aren't going to an, you know, entrepreneurial focus university or not in that regional area where so much of you know, startups are, you know, born this idea that you have to have a clear idea of how you're going to get there, or, you know, or it's not worth it. Like, I think it's so important to reiterate the message that many, many people have the vision, have the idea, and just and most importantly, I think, have the belief in themselves and confidence in themselves, that they will figure it out along the way. I think there's a misconception that you need to you don't need a supply chain, you know, manufacturing background, to go into this physical product. You can figure it out. So I think that's a really nice example of, you know, just that dive in head first, believe that you'll figure it out. Ask questions, surround yourself with good people, outsource when you need to. Yeah, that's

Amanda Calabrese 42:08 the biggest thing is like bringing, I think the biggest, the biggest asset that a founding team or a founder can have is knowing when to bring on help and bringing on people that know more than you'll ever know about a topic or a part of your business, right? Like bringing on somebody with so much experience that they can help execute and that you as the founder, your job is not to do everything. Your job is not to be the best at everything. Your job is to facilitate and create a space for the best people to do their best work. That's that's the best way to be a founder. Yeah,

Julia Landauer 42:51 and that brings back the importance of the storytelling component that you talked about earlier. Like the way that you're going to bring in these really knowledgeable experience like top tier talent people, is by articulating the vision and sharing the passion. And that's where I think, like, especially that, that little Je ne sais quoi from a founder is so important because you bring that magic to it that then makes people want to get involved. Totally, totally.

I love it. Oh, I love it so much. We're going to take one more break, but then we're going to be back with I'm gonna be back with AmandaCalabrese.

We are back on if I'm honest with Julia Landauer, with our guest, Amanda Calabrese from Sequel. So you talk about how pretty early on, after graduating, you were able to get out and start pitching for some VC funding. And it has been widely reported, especially in the recent past, that women founders receive a very small percentage of overall VC funding. And yeah, hope that that's changing. There's awareness now at least. But can you talk a little to the experience that you personally had you and Greta had being female founders going after VC funding. Yeah,

Amanda Calabrese 44:08 when we were when we were going out and pitching for funding, we recognized that we were two young women, and we were pitching a product that was meant for women, and so we had, we had some hurdles to overcome, but I do think that for us going out and pitching a lot of it was about again, storytelling and making sure that we were clearly communicating to whoever our audience was on The other side of the pitch, that they understood that this was a need that needed to be solved, whether they could empathize with the problem, or whether they could sympathize with the problem, that this was a this was a critical problem that needed to be solved. And I think that what we did really well was asking. In our audience to you know, ask around if they couldn't empathize and they could only sympathize with the problem. Ask your wife, your daughter, your female friends. Ask them what they think about this category, this market. Do some research and come back to us with any questions that you have, and I think being open to that, being open to investors wanting to do research with the people around them that they care about the most, I think people feel the most comfortable taking risks on things and taking bets on things when they understand it, which is why like which is why it's so hard to raise money for tampons or anything in the women's health space, because if it doesn't, if you don't feel like it affects you, and you don't feel like you can relate to it, it's much more difficult to take a risk on it. So making sure that we are telling the story in the way, in a way where people feel comfortable asking questions, they feel comfortable engaging with us, and comfortable engaging with the people in their lives, to ask some really hard questions or ask some maybe questions that they never thought they'd be asking of their friends or their partners. We need to facilitate an environment and a conversation where they can feel comfortable doing that. And so that means we need to be really confident in our belief that this would be a huge business. We need to be confident that this is a business that needs to exist. This is a problem that needs to be solved, but this is a company that we're the right people to do it. This is a company being built by people that are exactly the founders that should be doing it. And I think that's a huge like founder product fit, especially for CPG, is a huge deal when pitching as well. Yeah,

Julia Landauer 46:44 and you talking, reminded me of, I don't know who said this. I cannot find the accreditation needed, but a quote that privilege is invisible to those who have it. And I feel like that is probably like an additional hurdle that you have to deal with. To your point, as a female led and co founded female product company pitching to I would assume majority men like, yeah, needing to have that education process, which not every investor is going to want to be educated like you hope that they do, but like there's clearly like you should, I would assume that it almost can make the process easier, if you see that willingness and or I should say, shouldn't, make the process easier. Nothing about raising money is easy, but like you know, makes it maybe smoother. If you see that there's that willingness to learn totally and

Amanda Calabrese 47:35 I have one of our one of our investors, is absolutely incredible. It's Mar Hershenson at Pear VC, and I love this anecdote from when we were raising money. She is a woman, and she obviously understood the need that we were trying to solve very deeply, and in trying to communicate that to some male investors, it was more it was us and some male investors. She knew that in order to get these male investors to understand what we what the gravity of what we were trying to solve, she had to put it in their terms. And so she said, you know, some of you are new parents, some of you have. Our parents have had children. You've all been through the diaper phase. And she's like, imagine you're running through the airport, you're changing planes, and your child wearing diapers. What's the one thing like you're in this kind of like state of chaos? What is the one thing that you need that diaper to do as you're trying to execute something that absolutely must happen? High pressure, high stakes, it cannot leak. And that was such a powerful use of storytelling to build empathy with an audience that will never experience their tampon leaking. They'll never experience how many used tampons, but they'll experience a diaper leaking while you're changing planes, running through an airport with a child in a lot of suitcases. Yeah,

Julia Landauer 49:18 oh my goodness, this makes me, like, a little angry, because you may say, in that example of diapers, it's like, that is a such a similar product. I had never, I had never drawn the parallels there. And there has been, to my understanding, quite a bit of innovation around diapers, around materials, around sustainable stuff. Like, that's a whole nother, totally innovation with, like, not putting chemicals in your body, on your body, whatever. And like, there's so much iteration around that, and yet, a very similar product that affects roughly 50% of the population has not been innovate, like, for women, just keep getting screwed. Like, oh my goodness. So thank you again for stepping up for this space. Because, yeah, I haven't thought about it like that. And, oh, yeah. But I'm glad that that story resonated, because it does. It's, it's, that would be terrible,

Amanda Calabrese 50:06 yeah. And for all the super dads in the room, as they all are, they were like, of course, like, of course, I'm like, carrying my child and I don't want the diaper to leak, like, I've got to get on the plane and, like, and they knew, like, immediately they resonated with that, right? So,

Julia Landauer 50:23 yeah, no, that's that's a really to your point, great example of storytelling, and I appreciate that. On behalf of all the women out there, I only have a couple more questions for you before we get into our rapid fire, if you're honest. But what would you say so far have been some of your proudest moments with sequel?

Amanda Calabrese 50:45 We Oh, my God, proudest moments.

Julia Landauer 50:51 I think everything. I

Amanda Calabrese 50:53 think, I think both my co founder and I, we would say that one of our proudest moments is watching the first, like, at scale production line of our product, like, like spiral tampons, like coming off the line and like seeing it and holding it for the first time, and being like, oh my god, this is real. I think that's one. I think another one is being in Paris this past summer was so incredible for all of us, for the team like I just that was such a huge moment, because you're like, you know, you're in, it's like, 2020, and you're trying to build this product. And everybody's always talking, everybody's always talking about the next Olympics, when the Olympics is happening, right? So it's like, Tokyo 2020, 2021, and this whole conversation around the Olympics. And although you guys go to the Olympics, you guys doing anything to the Olympics, we're like, No, we're not doing anything for the Tokyo Olympics. We like, are still in r, d, and to four years later, three years later, be there in Paris. That was, that was a huge moment.

Julia Landauer 52:01 Oh, that's incredible, yeah. And on a global stage, I mean, like, that is with, with, like, the definition of human excellence, and to be associated with that, like, that's, I'm really glad that you guys got to go there, yeah. So, so what's next? What's next for you? What's next for Sequel? What, what are we going to manifest here today,

Amanda Calabrese 52:23 we have some really exciting partnerships coming up. So, so excited for 2025 also, we're starting to build out our athlete roster. So we are finally, I mean, this is such a dream for me to be able to work with some of the most amazing athletes in the world that want to talk about periods and talk about what it's like to perform on their period. We're building on our athlete roster, and that's a big focus for 2025 and I'm so excited to start announcing some of the athletes that we will be working with next year. That's

Julia Landauer 52:58 incredible. Oh, well, I am rooting for you. I am so excited to follow along on that. And also I have, I have bought my sequel, so the next time that I need them, I will be trying them out and amazing. Really looking forward to it, because it is such a I don't know it's a little like, it's emotional and it's like a comfort thing, and I think you can get in your own head about it. So I'm really excited to pivot to our final segment. I can't believe all this time has already gone by, but the rapid fire, if you're honest, what is your go to quick and easy dinner?

Amanda Calabrese 53:30 Oh, I am such a like, a bunch of veggies in a cast iron, like, on the stone rice. Like, I don't know, just like, I feel like it's my athlete days. Like, if I'm like, getting home tired after a long day at work, I'm like, grilled chicken, veggies on the cast iron rice, like, just reverting back to the like, grinding it out athlete days. And then I, like, sit down with my meal, and I'm like, God, this is literally, like, I'm training again, but

Julia Landauer 54:00 it's nutrient dense, and it does, yeah, and it's quick,

Amanda Calabrese 54:03 but non quick and easy. Like, I love making homemade pizza, like, actually rolling out dough with, like, letting it rise with the yeast, and like, actually making that for my friends. Like, I actually think that's super easy, but it seems like it's not. So

Julia Landauer 54:19 my husband, Ben, and especially our friends here. There are a few friends here where, like, we have, we have a wood burning uni oven, and then our friend has the gas powered Ooni pizza oven. And like, they like, so fun red sheets of different like, the chemical properties of the dough that they're making are not chemical, but like, the ingredient properties of the doughs that they're making. And like, Oh my God, with sugar and oil and wetness and yeast, and it's like, oh my goodness yes. Like, keep making pizza. No, we we're gonna have a pizza today.

Amanda Calabrese 54:48 We're gonna We're fast and loose in my household. It's like, I don't even know where our measuring cups are. And like, little bit of yeast, a little bit of water, dough, like, or I. Flour, oil, sugar, and then it just comes together. And my friends are, like, my friends have, like, my French friends have watched me cook, and they're like, Okay, yeah, no, I'm

Julia Landauer 55:11 having surgery on behalf of Ben, because I can, like, imagine, like, no, stop it. Stop

Amanda Calabrese 55:18 measuring your baking. Yeah. What am I? My good friends is like a chef and has worked in Michelin star restaurants, and is like, he'll come over and like, be watching me cook, and he'll just be like, You got it? You got it? Like, no worries. You got

Julia Landauer 55:35 this. Hey, if it tastes good and it's edible at the end, that's all that matters. I don't cook very much. I'm like the professional dishwasher in the house, so I can't really contribute to styles. Yeah, you know what? We each serve a purpose. Yes, what musical artists are you listening to a lot right now?

Amanda Calabrese 55:54 Oh, I'm listening to Chappell Roan like everyone else. I feel like that's like a just classic answer, but

Julia Landauer 56:02 she's on several of her songs are on my rotation on Spotify, yeah, last if you're honest, what is something that you're grateful for right now?

Amanda Calabrese 56:13 I'm so grateful that I am two blocks from the ocean right now. I'm so grateful to live in a city and get to be close to the ocean right now. I'm a surfer. I am an ocean person, through and through, and just to be able to jump in the water at the end of a long day is something I think I'll look back on later in life and be like, Wow, you got to live that close to the beach in your 20s. That's so cool.

Julia Landauer 56:41 That is so cool. And also very brave, because it's very cold water out there.

Amanda Calabrese 56:45 It is cold, yeah, um,

Julia Landauer 56:47 Amanda, that's amazing. Where are some of the best places for people to find you online and to find Sequel?

Amanda Calabrese 56:54 So @TrySequel is our Instagram and Tiktok, you can find me at AP Calabrese on Instagram, and then sometimes I post on LinkedIn, and sometimes I don't, so you can find me there, but yeah, Instagram, Tiktok first, people and myself,

Julia Landauer 57:11 I will link all that in description and include the website. Amanda. Thank you so much. This was so cool to hear your journey. I am so excited to now know you and follow you on this journey, because it's such impactful work and making Stanford proud, for sure.

Amanda Calabrese 57:27 So so thankful to be here to know you and appreciate everything. Thank you for having me.

Julia Landauer 57:36 Thank you, everyone. That is our episode, I will be sharing all this information on Amanda and Sequel and Greta, her co founder. And if you like this episode, please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well and as always, thank you for letting us be honest with you, and I will see you in two weeks.