How The Flex Company disrupted menstrual care (with founder & CEO Lauren Wang) | Masters of Scale

1. 0:00 – 2:11

   From searching for a CEO to deciding to lead Flex herself

   1. LWLauren Wang0:00

      So I was on this journey telling everyone that I met about my idea and asking for help and saying I was looking for a CEO, and I would be CMO.

   2. JBJeff Berman0:09

      Lauren Wang knew that her idea for a new kind of menstrual product had massive potential. She wanted to create a disposable, flexible disc that could be worn instead of a tampon. But Lauren wasn't sure she could be CEO of a company. That all changed one day while she was out on a run with a dear friend.

   3. LWLauren Wang0:28

      And one day he said, "You know, I'm starting a company, as you know, and I really want a female CEO, and I, I would love for you to throw your hat in the ring. I'm dead serious."

   4. JBJeff Berman0:41

      Hmm.

   5. LWLauren Wang0:42

      And it was that moment, I literally stopped dead in my tracks, and I looked at him and I said, "You know what, Dan? I, I'm gonna do this." And he's like, "Do what?" I was like, "The period thing." [laughs] He's like, "You're gonna do it?" Like, "Yeah. If you think that I'm good enough that you would hire me, I'm gonna do it."

   6. JBJeff Berman1:03

      Lauren did not look back. She founded the Flex Co. in 2015 and has achieved impressive scale in the last decade. Flex period products are now available in more than 30,000 stores, including CVS, Target, and Walmart. And as we're recording this in late 2024, it's the number one seller in its category on Amazon as well. The Flex story is a phenomenal example of how you can disrupt an old-fashioned industry with newfangled designs and marketing that isn't just unafraid to talk about taboo subjects, marketing that leans into the real talk. This is Masters of Scale. I'm Jeff Berman, your host. After her own health problems caused by tampons sent her down a research rabbit hole, Lauren Wang realized that menstrual products hadn't really gotten much of an upgrade in the past century. She knew she couldn't be alone in her dissatisfaction with the two main options, tampons and pads, but it was a complex challenge to turn her bold idea for a new product into reality. Lauren, welcome to Masters of Scale.

   7. LWLauren Wang2:11

      Thanks.

2. 2:11 – 3:49

   Personal health struggles reveal a neglected product category

   1. JBJeff Berman2:11

      Um, like many of the founders we have on Masters of Scale, you have a non-obvious journey to where you are, um, uh, where you didn't grow up dreaming of being an entrepreneur. Um, can you talk about kind of where you started and how you got, how, how you began on this journey?

   2. LWLauren Wang2:27

      Yeah. So I moved to San Francisco when I was 25 years old, and I worked in, uh, tech and I worked in nonprofit, and through those two networks, I started meeting some really, really big entrepreneurs in the Valley. And I, you know, I'm from a small town in Georgia and really never, ever, ever wanted to be an entrepreneur. My family was food insecure at certain points in my life. Um, I'm the oldest of five kids, the first to go to college, a pretty common story on your show. And in retrospect, it always seems so obvious to everyone else in the room, like, "Of course you thought of this." Like, it seems so obvious, but no one else was paying attention to this space. And I, I had this one really obvious problem in my life, which was I was getting infections from tampons every single month for 15 years of my life.

   3. JBJeff Berman3:16

      Every month?

   4. LWLauren Wang3:17

      Every month.

   5. JBJeff Berman3:18

      That can't be comfortable.

   6. LWLauren Wang3:19

      [laughs] No. One week with my period and another week with an infection. Having an infection was extremely, extremely disruptive to my life, um, but I didn't really know that it was being caused by my tampons until my nurse practitioner in San Francisco said, "I'm not writing another prescription for you for yeast infection medication until you promise to stop using tampons."

   7. JBJeff Berman3:43

      But what, what are you supposed to do then? Is it pads is the only option at the time?

   8. LWLauren Wang3:47

      Maxi pads.

   9. JBJeff Berman3:47

      Yeah.

   10. LWLauren Wang3:48

       Maxi pads.

   11. JBJeff Berman3:48

       Yeah.

3. 3:49 – 5:09

   Discovering menstrual cups and the broader period-access context

   1. LWLauren Wang3:49

      So fast-forward to 2013, I'm at a dinner with eight women, and one of the women starts talking about this product called the cup, and all of the women at the table had switched to the cup. I'd never heard of a cup. I was like, "A menstrual cup? What are you talking about?" But they were talking about 12 hours, and they were talking about the fact that it's sustainable and this and that, and I, I was very, very intrigued. That experience in my life sparked curiosity about the space that turned into this fanaticism that turned into this hobby that ate up all my time on the weekends.

   2. JBJeff Berman4:21

      So before we get to how that hobby became a business, I just want to make sure that we also frame the, the nurse who's at the dinner was in Nepal, and, um, I have to imagine that part of the reason she's there giving out cups and teaching women how to use them is because there are a lot of parts of the world where period products are not available, and you are literally out of the labor market for, like, a week, a month-

   3. LWLauren Wang4:45

      Mm-hmm

   4. JBJeff Berman4:45

      ... if, if you don't have a period product. Is that, is that part of the story there?

   5. LWLauren Wang4:49

      Absolutely, yeah. And it's, it's a huge problem not only in developing countries but in the US. There are girls that miss school regularly because of period products. There's a study that came out a few weeks ago that said, um, girls at all income levels actually lack access to affordable period products.

4. 5:09 – 7:08

   Research rabbit hole: stigma, lack of innovation, and lack of information

   1. JBJeff Berman5:09

      W- what does it mean that it becomes a hobby?

   2. LWLauren Wang5:12

      I'm just a very curious person, and I started by wondering, well, why are tampons giving me infections? Certainly, there has to be a study out there. And I talked to different doctors, and they all said, "You're crazy. It was just that one nurse practitioner. Tampons are perfectly safe. You know, this is something wrong with your body." And my doctors from Georgia had told me that for years.

   3. JBJeff Berman5:32

      Hmm.

   4. LWLauren Wang5:32

      I mean, this is 15 years. I tried really hard to solve this problem. But I couldn't find any research on the internet other than some old studies about toxic shock syndrome, which is, um, something that you can die from, but you don't only get from tampons. And there was no other, you know, information about why I'd be getting other types of infections. And the more that I studied it and the more that I researched it, the more I realized there has not been any meaningful innovation in this space in nearly 100 years. In fact, the menstrual cup was patented by a woman in the 1930s, who was a stage actress. It's a phenomenal story, and that's how she popularized it and blah, blah, blah. But it took until the, you know, late 2010s for people to even hear about menstrual cups, honestly

   5. JBJeff Berman6:19

      And w- why?

   6. LWLauren Wang6:22

      Well, first of all, there's not a lot of money in menstrual cups because it's a reusable product. Um, and I think we didn't have internet advertising, we didn't have social media, and most fundamentally, periods are still stigmatized, and if you don't talk about something, you can't identify when there are problems.

   7. JBJeff Berman6:42

      Mm.

   8. LWLauren Wang6:42

      I think that stigma is why there has been very little research and funding for women's health overall, and why, you know, even Cosmo Magazine in 2015 had an editorial policy to not write about periods.

   9. JBJeff Berman6:56

      Wow.

   10. LWLauren Wang6:57

       Yeah.

   11. JBJeff Berman6:57

       In 2015?

   12. LWLauren Wang6:58

       Yeah.

   13. JBJeff Berman6:58

       Okay. So we're, we're in, in the 2012, 2013 range-

   14. LWLauren Wang7:03

       Yeah

   15. JBJeff Berman7:03

       ... when you are... th- this, this becomes an obsession for you.

   16. LWLauren Wang7:07

       Mm.

5. 7:08 – 9:23

   Turning curiosity into a plan: asking for help with specific, time-bound requests

   1. JBJeff Berman7:08

      Um, you're, one, a marketer, not a, a product person. Um, how do you make the leap to this becoming a business? How do you figure out how to, how to manufacture a product? What, what, what do you do?

   2. LWLauren Wang7:19

      Um, well, at the time, Evernote was a thing. I had, uh, basically an, a digital notebook where I categorized it by all the different things I didn't know how to do: product development, FDA regulatory, um, finance, uh, [laughs] basically everything other than marketing. Uh, manufacturing, supply chain, you name it.

   3. JBJeff Berman7:37

      Mm-hmm.

   4. LWLauren Wang7:38

      And then I created a second list of all the smart people I'd ever interacted with in my professional life, and I started working at IBM when I was 19, so I'd collected, like, a long list of people through the years. And then I made a third list of email addresses, and I typed up, you know, "I have this idea. I wanna make a new period product, and I'm really looking for," and I would have a very specific ask.

   5. JBJeff Berman8:01

      Mm-hmm.

   6. LWLauren Wang8:02

      "Someone with expertise in supply chain. I know nothing about it. I need to make my first financial model. Um, like, and I n- I need to know about COGS."

   7. JBJeff Berman8:12

      And, and I think part of what's fascinating about this is while the network that you had accumulated from 19 forward, um, didn't directly have the expertise, by putting the asks out there and by sa- by exposing, like, "I don't know what I'm doing, but I wanna figure this out," you're then looking for those second- and third-degree of connections-

   8. LWLauren Wang8:32

      Mm

   9. JBJeff Berman8:33

      ... and by maintaining these relationships over time, they're willing to help.

   10. LWLauren Wang8:36

       Yeah. I f- I found one of the biggest hacks, which was people can be flattered that you ask for their help, and especially if the ask is very specific and especially if the ask is very time-bound. "I would love to talk to you for 10 minutes about supply chain manufacturing because I'm building a financial model." I was just very clear and specific, and that turned into him saying, "You know what? If you can come to Portland, I'll meet with you for a weekend."

   11. JBJeff Berman9:06

       Right. And so what often happens is people say, "Can I get a half hour to pick your brain?" And it's like-

   12. LWLauren Wang9:11

       Yeah

   13. JBJeff Berman9:11

       ... "Ah, I don't have a half an hour."

   14. LWLauren Wang9:12

       Yeah.

   15. JBJeff Berman9:12

       "And pick my brain about like..." Right?

   16. LWLauren Wang9:14

       Yeah.

   17. JBJeff Berman9:14

       It- it's like you wanna be helpful, but, like, I, that, it's too generic.

   18. LWLauren Wang9:17

       Yeah.

   19. JBJeff Berman9:18

       So by being specific, it sounds like you, you, you got an outsized return on these asks.

6. 9:23 – 12:38

   Overcoming self-doubt: choosing to go all-in for moral reasons

   1. LWLauren Wang9:23

      Yes. Yes, I did. And then everyone that I met, I would tell about my idea, but the most important thing I'm not telling you right now is I didn't wanna be the CEO.

   2. JBJeff Berman9:32

      Ooh, why not?

   3. LWLauren Wang9:34

      Uh, [laughs] number one, I didn't think that I could. Um, number two, when I quit my tech job, um, I had the two people who, who I still love to this day, we're very close, um, who were both in C-level positions pull me aside and say, "You're making a huge mistake. You haven't ever even been CMO. How do you think you're gonna be CEO? You should go work for a very small startup first, try to get a CMO job, and then you'll get, you'll get to see what it's really like to work at a super small startup." Which in hindsight is fair advice, I think, for a lot of different people, but I was absolutely gutted when t- separately they had told me this. [laughs] Um, and they since have come back and, like, apologized and, and, but I, I understood that they were coming from a really good place. So I had self-doubt. I had the people that I trusted the most professionally reflecting back to me my own self-doubt. So I did, I think what anyone would naturally do, was I asked two separate men who were each running a billion-dollar plus, multi-billion-dollar company if they would be CEO of my company. [laughs]

   4. JBJeff Berman10:46

      Uh-huh. And they, th- they smiled.

   5. LWLauren Wang10:51

      They laughed and they're like, "You are completely capable of doing this, Lauren."

   6. JBJeff Berman10:55

      Mm.

   7. LWLauren Wang10:55

      Uh, but I still didn't believe them.

   8. JBJeff Berman10:57

      So I mean, R- Reid Hoffman talks a lot about j- jumping off the cliff and building the airplane on the way down.

   9. LWLauren Wang11:02

      Yeah.

   10. JBJeff Berman11:03

       Um, but the, there's sort of a modified version of that where you're staying in a job, so you haven't fully jumped off the cliff. You're, like, leaning over the edge of the cliff, starting to build before you go. Uh, what, what gave you the confidence to leave a job where you had a steady salary, where you had benefits, et cetera, and go all in on this idea?

   11. LWLauren Wang11:22

       I didn't feel that I was giving it a fair shake. Um, I felt that the risk in me, like, the risk in me not trying to create a period company would be worse than the risk of me trying to do it and failing.

   12. JBJeff Berman11:44

       Mm.

   13. LWLauren Wang11:44

       And by that, I meant I felt deeply, deeply pulled from a moral imperative that I need to do this to serve others. And I grew up in an evangelical household. This probably has something to do with it, that I always, um, thought I was gonna be a missionary when I grew up. Um, but from... And, and I'm, I'm no longer an evangelical, but I think that that foundation for me ties into wh- what I wanna do for society or what I believe is my place in this world, is to help other people.

   14. JBJeff Berman12:20

       Mm-hmm.

   15. LWLauren Wang12:20

       And so I really Didn't feel like I was doing right by society, doing right by women to work on this as a side hustle and try to play it safe.

   16. JBJeff Berman12:33

       Mm-hmm.

   17. LWLauren Wang12:33

       I felt like I had to go all in, otherwise I wasn't giving it a fair shot.

7. 12:38 – 14:00

   What the period disc is—and why it’s different

   1. JBJeff Berman12:38

      For the listeners in the audience who don't know, what is the disc?

   2. LWLauren Wang12:41

      So the period disc is not a cup. It's not a tampon. It sits in a different place in the body. So a menstrual cup and a tampon sit inside the vaginal canal where there's a lot of nerve endings and, um, you can feel it. The menstrual disc, or period disc, sits further back around the cervix, so, um, in a place where a diaphragm would sit.

   3. JBJeff Berman13:05

      Mm-hmm.

   4. LWLauren Wang13:06

      And what's great about the disc is you can wear it for up to 12 hours. It holds five super tampons worth of fluid, which is more than any other period product format on the market. But my favorite part is when you go to pee, it self-empties.

   5. JBJeff Berman13:23

      Huh.

   6. LWLauren Wang13:26

      So when you go to pee, it self-empties. You don't have to take it out. A menstrual cup, when it gets full, you have to take it out and empty.

   7. JBJeff Berman13:32

      Mm-hmm.

   8. LWLauren Wang13:32

      Um, when a tampon gets full, and you have to change tampons very frequently, or a pad, you have to carry multiple products around.

   9. JBJeff Berman13:37

      Mm-hmm.

   10. LWLauren Wang13:38

       With the disc, you only use two disposable discs per day. You-

   11. JBJeff Berman13:42

       'Cause you can wear it up to 12 hours

   12. LWLauren Wang13:43

       ... 'cause you wear it up to 12 hours.

   13. JBJeff Berman13:44

       Mm-hmm.

   14. LWLauren Wang13:45

       We also make a reusable version that you only have to take it out once a day.

   15. JBJeff Berman13:49

       Mm-hmm.

   16. LWLauren Wang13:49

       So it's a set it and forget it. You feel like you're not on your period.

   17. JBJeff Berman13:53

       Mm-hmm.

   18. LWLauren Wang13:53

       The reason we went viral to begin with is because you can have mess-free oral or penetrative fun.

8. 14:00 – 16:19

   Funding a hardware-like product: the chicken-and-egg of proving demand

   1. JBJeff Berman14:00

      So, uh, L- Lauren, you've gotta figure out product development. You've gotta figure out supply chain. You gotta figure out, um, distribution, I mean, the whole list of, of the Evernote notes, right? Um, but also funding.

   2. LWLauren Wang14:12

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JBJeff Berman14:12

      Right? And a lot of the entrepreneurs who we speak with, founders we speak with, who are women or are building products that are disproportionately for women-

   4. LWLauren Wang14:21

      Mm-hmm

   5. JBJeff Berman14:22

      ... um, run into a bit of a challenge because most of the capital in this country is controlled by men. Um, what, h- how did you get your first round of funding? How, how did you get the company off the ground?

   6. LWLauren Wang14:33

      Well, if you're making a physical product, and our product, um, our first product, the disc, required a custom, a custom manufacturing line, and space in someone's manufacturing facility, and labor, and all of these other things, right? And so even if you have a product design, you still need the raw materials, and you need the actual machine, in our case, because it's all patented, needed machinery to be able to build it. So we're talking over a million dollars.

   7. JBJeff Berman15:00

      Mm-hmm.

   8. LWLauren Wang15:00

      But when I would go to talk to investors and show them my financial model, um, how do you know that people are actually going to buy this thing?

   9. JBJeff Berman15:09

      Right.

   10. LWLauren Wang15:09

       And it was this chicken or the egg problem. How do I demonstrate demand before I demonstrate... before I can even make the product? And that was a whole problem to solve, and I've had so many entrepreneurs ask me that question. And I said, "This is your f-" I always say, "It feels so unfair. This is your first challenge, and I know it feels like the hardest one, but if you can't solve this problem, you're not prepared to be an entrepreneur."

   11. JBJeff Berman15:31

       Hmm.

   12. LWLauren Wang15:32

       So I went through a lot of different, different machinations to solve that problem, and in the meantime, I moved in with my boyfriend. I put my apartment, um, in San Francisco illegally on Airbnb. I got caught, uh, and [laughs] almost evicted. Um, and at that point, I was very close to running out of money. So I, since I had been working at IBM since I was 19, I called Vanguard to cash out my 401 [k] . And the woman... I will never forget, the woman on the line was begging me, "Please don't do this."

   13. JBJeff Berman16:05

       Hmm.

   14. LWLauren Wang16:05

       "This is the b- such a big mistake." And I said, "I don't have any choice. I'm out of money."

   15. JBJeff Berman16:08

       Hmm.

   16. LWLauren Wang16:09

       And she was just like, "You're gonna pay more than half of this in taxes." I'm like, "I don't have a choice. Like, I ha- I have, I have a product designer I have to pay. I have, you know, I have things that I have to do."

9. 16:19 – 19:34

   Y Combinator validation and “do things that don’t scale” traction hacks

   1. JBJeff Berman16:19

      Even after draining her 401 [k] , Lauren needed more investment to get her business off the ground, a lot more, so she applied to participate in Y Combinator, the renowned startup incubator. At that time, Y Combinator was being led by Silicon Valley legend, and now founder of OpenAI, Sam Altman.

   2. LWLauren Wang16:38

      I, I got the interview, and I interviewed with Sam Altman.

   3. JBJeff Berman16:41

      Mm-hmm.

   4. LWLauren Wang16:42

      And I remember Sam was like, "I don't know a lot about periods, but it seems like a really big space."

   5. JBJeff Berman16:49

      [laughs]

   6. LWLauren Wang16:50

      "And it seems like there's not been any innovation, and I think you're gonna be the person to do this."

   7. JBJeff Berman16:55

      Wow.

   8. LWLauren Wang16:56

      And that vote of confidence from Sam was just... It was incredible.

   9. JBJeff Berman17:02

      What'd you learn most from the Y Combinator experience?

   10. LWLauren Wang17:05

       To do things that don't scale in the early days.

   11. JBJeff Berman17:08

       Hmm. Can you give me an example of that?

   12. LWLauren Wang17:10

       Yeah. So [laughs] I think the best example I have of doing something that didn't scale, we had a limited production run of product, and we were not yet, um, we did not yet have our FDA clearance.

   13. JBJeff Berman17:26

       Mm-hmm.

   14. LWLauren Wang17:26

       We knew that the product was going to be FDA cleared in the US, but we didn't have it, but we had it in Europe.

   15. JBJeff Berman17:31

       Mm-hmm.

   16. LWLauren Wang17:31

       And I had this wait list that I had created for the product, um, where, uh, people just gave me their email address and their home address, and then I said I would send them, you know, two menstrual discs, two Flex discs. Um, so I had this massive list of all these consumers that wanted the product, but I couldn't mail them anywhere.

   17. JBJeff Berman17:52

       So y- y- y- y- we're, we're talking about, um, doing things that don't scale, and, um, you are buying a cheap ticket to Iceland, and then you are budget airline hopping with duffle bags full of product and mailing them out locally. There must have been some awkward moments in, i- in this. What, what, uh, give us some of the stories from that trip, if you would.

   18. LWLauren Wang18:13

       Yeah. Well, first of all, we're traveling with, like, 20,000 or 30,000 discs, which are about this big, right?

   19. JBJeff Berman18:20

       The size of, like, a silver dollar, maybe a little bigger?

   20. LWLauren Wang18:23

       No, this... Well, I don't know how... How big is that?

   21. JBJeff Berman18:26

       [laughs] For, for, for peo- for people who are listening, um-

   22. LWLauren Wang18:30

       For people who are listening. [laughs]

   23. JBJeff Berman18:31

       Yeah. It's... It may be, maybe as-

   24. LWLauren Wang18:32

       The size of a friendship bracelet.

   25. JBJeff Berman18:34

       Okay, great. Perfect.

   26. LWLauren Wang18:35

       'Cause that's what I was telling customs that I was shipping friendship bracelets.

   27. JBJeff Berman18:38

       Amazing.

   28. LWLauren Wang18:39

       And the, the people that worked in the postal office were not happy to see us.

   29. JBJeff Berman18:42

       Mm.

   30. LWLauren Wang18:42

       I mean, we would have duffle bags that are about, um, you know, five foot nine, about more than half the size of my body, full of these different packages coming in, and, you know, each postage is a very small amount because friendship bracelets are quite light, it turns out. So it was a lot of work for them without, um, a lot of money, and it was quite awkward.
10. 19:34 – 21:54

    Demo Day shock value and investor rush

    1. JBJeff Berman19:34

       Demo Day. It's the high-stakes capstone event of Y Combinator. Each startup gets a chance, one chance, to pitch their business to an auditorium full of eager venture capitalists. What happened at Demo Day?

    2. LWLauren Wang19:48

       They put me on stage second-

    3. JBJeff Berman19:49

       Uh-huh

    4. LWLauren Wang19:50

       ... out of, um, just under 100 companies, and I loved that.

    5. JBJeff Berman19:53

       Uh-huh.

    6. LWLauren Wang19:54

       I was so excited, and I wasn't sure how investors would react. There were a lot of gasps in the audience. And we get offstage, and they, they kind of usher you into a hall, and, you know, if you have any kind of a physical product, you have a little table set up, and so we had a table, and I had my little Gina. I call her my anatomical model of the-

    7. JBJeff Berman20:15

       Not Gina, Gina

    8. LWLauren Wang20:16

       ... Gina-

    9. JBJeff Berman20:16

       Uh-huh

    10. LWLauren Wang20:17

        ... of the female reproductive system. And the doors to, like, this hall, it's like a, it... Imagine, like, a big conference hall, right?

    11. JBJeff Berman20:25

        Yeah.

    12. LWLauren Wang20:25

        And there's, like, 50 companies in there. The doors open. This herd of investors literally runs in, and they rush over to our table, and I'm absolutely mobbed. Like, people are, like, elbowing each other to come and talk to, to us. I have this guy walk by, go, "I'll give you 200K,"-

    13. JBJeff Berman20:45

        [laughs]

    14. LWLauren Wang20:45

        ... and walk away. [laughs] And someone's like, "That's Steve Cohen." I'd be like, "No way." And then someone else goes... I mean, these are all big VCs.

    15. JBJeff Berman20:54

        Yeah.

    16. LWLauren Wang20:54

        Someone else is like, "Did you plant him?" [laughs] Like, "Do you know..." I'm like, "I've never met him in my life." But I'm just trying to talk to all these different people at the same time.

    17. JBJeff Berman21:01

        So the gasps from the audience were not people being like, "I can't believe she's talking about this." They were like, "Holy crap, like, this is a massive market, and she's just come up with the solve for the, the innovation that we've been lacking for a century."

    18. LWLauren Wang21:13

        I don't know, maybe a little bit of both.

    19. JBJeff Berman21:15

        Okay.

    20. LWLauren Wang21:15

        But I would imagine being at Demo Day, especially if you're an investor, and this is summer 2016, that you've, you know, gone to Demo Day for the last 10 years, and all of a sudden there's someone on stage talking about vaginas, like, you're probably a little bit shocked. And, and YC has sense that, d- since done a lot of things for, for women's health. Um, and it's... We weren't the very first either.

    21. JBJeff Berman21:35

        Yeah.

    22. LWLauren Wang21:35

        Um, it was just a little bit more unusual at the time.

    23. JBJeff Berman21:38

        Yeah. Okay. So, so you, you get through Demo Day, you raise some more money.

    24. LWLauren Wang21:42

        Mm-hmm.

    25. JBJeff Berman21:43

        Um, is it smooth sailing from there?

    26. LWLauren Wang21:45

        Oh, just easy breezy.

    27. JBJeff Berman21:47

        Uh-huh.

    28. LWLauren Wang21:48

        [laughs]

    29. JBJeff Berman21:48

        Where, where did you hit some bumps along the way?

    30. LWLauren Wang21:51

        [sighs]

11. 21:54 – 23:27

    From D2C growth to retail reality: marketing engine and customer urgency

    1. LWLauren Wang21:54

       So many. Um, so o- originally, we launched direct-to-consumer-

    2. JBJeff Berman22:00

       Mm-hmm

    3. LWLauren Wang22:00

       ... um, as one did in 2016.

    4. JBJeff Berman22:02

       Yeah.

    5. LWLauren Wang22:02

       And Facebook had just been doing their marketing for a few years, but there was still this kind of arbitrage online, you know, to do online ads. They-

    6. JBJeff Berman22:11

       You could, you could buy Facebook and Instagram incredibly efficiently and get, put a dollar in and get three, $4 out.

    7. LWLauren Wang22:17

       It was like an ATM.

    8. JBJeff Berman22:18

       Yep.

    9. LWLauren Wang22:19

       But it's really hard to hire people that know how to do that. They're all in demand, and I didn't know any of them, and I was still trying to figure out, you know, all the other things about running a business. Um, so it took us a little while to get our actual marketing engine running. Um, we did end up, um, hitting, you know, a pretty significant, like, multimillion-dollar revenue number, uh, in our first year, which was really exciting. Um, but we didn't have, like, a repeatable, scalable marketing engine at the time.

    10. JBJeff Berman22:49

        Mm-hmm.

    11. LWLauren Wang22:49

        So that was kind of, um, the initial roadblock that we had. The next roadblock that we had was we kept hearing from, um, women that they don't wanna wait for their order to come.

    12. JBJeff Berman23:01

        Hmm.

    13. LWLauren Wang23:02

        So one of the things that I've learned, that I still learn every single month, is we don't know when our period's coming.

    14. JBJeff Berman23:09

        Right.

    15. LWLauren Wang23:09

        It comes every 28 days. I'm always surprised. I run a period product company. I don't know when my period is. So I kept hearing from customers over and over, no matter how quickly we could k- kind of figure out the shipping, um, that they didn't wanna wait, that they wanted to just go and buy their period product at the store like they normally did.

    16. JBJeff Berman23:26

        Mm-hmm.

12. 23:27 – 27:07

    Retail nearly breaks the company: cash-flow gaps, production issues, and financing constraints

    1. LWLauren Wang23:27

       I wanna go do my Target run. I wanna get my Starbucks. I wanna buy all my other stuff and get my Flex Disc. So trying to figure out how to break into retail was extraordinarily challenging, and now it's far more common for startups to work with Target or Walmart or CVS, but in 2016, I didn't know anyone else. There were only legacy brands there.

    2. JBJeff Berman23:51

       Mm-hmm. Right. Right. So Procter & Gamble and Unilever basically controlled the shelves, and, and you're pitching a new product that they have no reason to believe is gonna move, and shelf space is incredibly valuable.

    3. LWLauren Wang24:02

       Exactly.

    4. JBJeff Berman24:03

       So how'd you solve for it?

    5. LWLauren Wang24:04

       Learning how to line up your cash flows when you're a direct-to-consumer business is extraordinarily easy. A customer orders the product, you get paid right away. With retail, they'll order the product, and sometimes you don't get paid for 90 days.

    6. JBJeff Berman24:15

       Right.

    7. LWLauren Wang24:16

       And then your payment terms with your manufacturer, your other suppliers might be different. So lining, learning how to basically run two totally different business models at the same time-

    8. JBJeff Berman24:26

       Right

    9. LWLauren Wang24:26

       ... was q- was very, very challenging.

    10. JBJeff Berman24:28

        Yeah. Yeah, complicated accounting and cash management becomes really difficult because, I mean, the f- the, the float can be well more than the 90 days, right?

    11. LWLauren Wang24:37

        Exactly.

    12. JBJeff Berman24:37

        You gotta pay for the manufacturing in some cases upfront, and you could be on plus 90 terms with a retailer.

    13. LWLauren Wang24:43

        Exactly.

    14. JBJeff Berman24:44

        Right. So, so when, when you, when you say it almost killed the company, like, what, w- what, what happened and how did you solve for it?

    15. LWLauren Wang24:51

        So we launched into a major retailer, um, in 2018, and there was a new person on the desk who put an order in that was three times larger, for our initial set order, was three times larger than we thought that it was going to be.

    16. JBJeff Berman25:08

        Mm-hmm.

    17. LWLauren Wang25:09

        And, um, and at the time, um, we had this tool on our manufacturing line that kept breaking, so we were having production issues that we were trying to parallel path and fix at the same time we got an order that was three times larger than we thought. But the fines if you don't make the order, and we had tried pushing back, but we're a, an early company.

    18. JBJeff Berman25:28

        Right.

    19. LWLauren Wang25:28

        You don't wanna push back on, like, a, a really big retailer. So I didn't have enough cash to be able to produce their orders. Um, and there weren't any lenders for a company like mine at the time, and I went out and, um, hired a really experienced controller from CPG-

    20. JBJeff Berman25:45

        Mm-hmm

    21. LWLauren Wang25:45

        ... um, that was a referral from a friend. And so he and I went and talked to a number of banks, and they all wanted personal guarantees.

    22. JBJeff Berman25:51

        Hmm.

    23. LWLauren Wang25:52

        And I had a Subaru lease and an apartment in Venice. Like, what are you gonna take, my dog? [laughs]

    24. JBJeff Berman25:57

        Right. [laughs]

    25. LWLauren Wang25:59

        Like, personal... I don't even have a 401 [k] anymore.

    26. JBJeff Berman26:01

        Right, right.

    27. LWLauren Wang26:02

        Guarantee you what? Uh, so that was an, you know, it was a non-starter for me.

    28. JBJeff Berman26:06

        Yeah.

    29. LWLauren Wang26:07

        Um, we eventually found a non-traditional lender, um, that, that lent us money and help- helped us get over the hump, but that wasn't for another year.

    30. JBJeff Berman26:16

        Lauren, you're, you're, you're on this journey. You are solving these complex retail and D2C and, you know, cash management issues, and you're scraping by without having to do the personal guarantee on your Subaru lease. Um, it's still, it's still a new product. It's not something that people are used to using.
13. 27:07 – 31:51

    Brand voice and growth tailwinds: authentic marketing without fear-mongering

    1. LWLauren Wang27:07

       Yeah, it was really important for me to create a brand that was not fear-mongering to women. Even though I started the company because I was getting infections from tampons for 15 years, I didn't wanna go out and bash tampons to the world because I didn't want any person to feel badly, like I was bashing her. I believe that people should have more choices, that they should have more options, that there should be better research and funding for women's health, but I don't want to tell anyone that their personal health decision is wrong. Something that you put inside of your body, especially inside of your vagina, is extremely personal. Um, so it was really, really important for me for day, from day one that our, all of our benefits and all of, um, the good parts about our product were what was communicated versus taking the approach or just bashing the competition, which I don't know if that's the right business decision, to tell you the truth. I think fear-mongering works really well. Um, but it's just how I've chosen to run the business, and I think, you know, nine years in, we see that the brand is really, really resonating with people. I think it's working. And I think prior to us w- launching in Walmart in, um, 2022, investors would say to me, "You know, that's really cute that you work so well in Target. That's great that CVS is going well. You're never gonna be mainstream America."

    2. JBJeff Berman28:35

       Hmm.

    3. LWLauren Wang28:35

       "Like, the average American woman, there's no way she's gonna buy a period disc. There's, there's just no way."

    4. JBJeff Berman28:42

       Why, why, why did they come to that conclusion?

    5. LWLauren Wang28:44

       Well, 'cause they, they would say that it's niche or that it's too innovative or that, you know, they talk to their wife, and their wife doesn't wanna... I'm like, "Your wife isn't my... Respectfully, your wife is not my target demo." [laughs]

    6. JBJeff Berman28:57

       [laughs]

    7. LWLauren Wang28:58

       "Well, my secretary doesn't wanna use either." "Well, we don't use that word anymore, sir, but okay." Um, no, I, I think it just seemed too, too innovative.

    8. JBJeff Berman29:09

       Mm-hmm.

    9. LWLauren Wang29:09

       And I think people underestimate women.

    10. JBJeff Berman29:12

        How's it going now?

    11. LWLauren Wang29:13

        It's going great.

    12. JBJeff Berman29:14

        Yeah?

    13. LWLauren Wang29:14

        It's great. This is our best year ever.

    14. JBJeff Berman29:16

        What?

    15. LWLauren Wang29:17

        Um, revenue, profitability, all of those things.

    16. JBJeff Berman29:22

        Right, so it's your best year ever because, because you're making money and, and more and more people are buying the product and using the products. Um, but, but what's, what's driving the growth? How are you achieving the scale?

    17. LWLauren Wang29:32

        A couple of different things. Um, one, we have made some changes in our ad creative-

    18. JBJeff Berman29:38

        Hmm

    19. LWLauren Wang29:38

        ... um, that have really paid off for us. And at the same time, a big study came out from the University of Berkeley over the summer. I don't know if you saw it, but-

    20. JBJeff Berman29:47

        Yeah

    21. LWLauren Wang29:47

        ... 14 major tampon brands, including organic tampons, tested positive for toxic metalloids like lead and mercury and arsenic. And so the American zeitgeist for the last nine years, people have been suspecting tampons might not be that good for us, uh, maybe they've switched to pads, but are completely unaware that a disc exists.

    22. JBJeff Berman30:11

        Mm-hmm.

    23. LWLauren Wang30:12

        And so all of a sudden p- people's worst fears were confirmed, and what was doubly insulting is this is the first time a test like this has ever come out.

    24. JBJeff Berman30:20

        Hmm.

    25. LWLauren Wang30:21

        So thinking back to my years of researching, like, why am I getting infections and I'm not getting any answers-

    26. JBJeff Berman30:26

        Yeah

    27. LWLauren Wang30:26

        ... it's just, like, one, it's only one study.

    28. JBJeff Berman30:29

        Yeah.

    29. LWLauren Wang30:29

        And we still don't know You know, how much of these bad materials are being absorbed-

    30. JBJeff Berman30:35

        Yeah
14. 31:51 – 35:03

    Creator-led ads, new products, and the next stage of scale

    1. JBJeff Berman31:51

       And what... D- describe the new ad, ad creative for us, please.

    2. LWLauren Wang31:55

       Funny enough, the ads with me in it are the ones that do the best. [laughs]

    3. JBJeff Berman31:59

       Flex ads that feature Lauren aren't afraid to speak bluntly about periods. Here's an example.

    4. LWLauren Wang32:05

       I've always had a really heavy period. I used to bleed through a super tampon in just a couple of hours. I was 22, working in corporate America, in the middle of a meeting with the CEO, and I stood up, looked down at my seat, and I'd completely stained it with blood. It was a [beep] nightmare. I'm Lauren Wang. I'm the founder and CEO of Flex. But it takes time away from me running the company.

    5. JBJeff Berman32:27

       Yeah.

    6. LWLauren Wang32:27

       And it's not something that I naturally just, like, love being on camera or anything like that. Um, but that, that's good, and we have a new kind of creative process-

    7. JBJeff Berman32:37

       Yeah

    8. LWLauren Wang32:37

       ... that we're using, um, that's more, I think, scientific than what we did in the past. Also, in the past, we were so focused on hitting those EBITDA targets that we were a little bit nervous if we did stray too far in ad creative-

    9. JBJeff Berman32:51

       Yeah

    10. LWLauren Wang32:51

        ... then we wouldn't be getting, like, the bread and butter that we always were getting. But now we've found we can get the bread and butter that we are always getting and then so much more-

    11. JBJeff Berman33:00

        Yeah

    12. LWLauren Wang33:00

        ... by implementing new processes and structures for creative.

    13. JBJeff Berman33:03

        Wh- why are the ads with you working?

    14. LWLauren Wang33:05

        I don't know, because it's me. [laughs]

    15. JBJeff Berman33:07

        Yeah. Well, I mean, you're, you're... You know your customer. You are your customer, right?

    16. LWLauren Wang33:11

        Yeah.

    17. JBJeff Berman33:11

        I mean, I have to assume that that's, that that's a part of it.

    18. LWLauren Wang33:14

        Yeah. I think people really find the brand to be authentic and trustworthy-

    19. JBJeff Berman33:19

        Mm

    20. LWLauren Wang33:19

        ... because of some of the reasons I talked about before, because we're not trying to preach to anyone, and we're not trying to scare anyone, and we're just kind of creating this welcoming space for people.

    21. JBJeff Berman33:28

        Yeah. Um, what's next for you?

    22. LWLauren Wang33:31

        Well, we have new products coming out next year, uh, which I'm very excited about, so we're really deepening our relationships with our retail partners now, where we're now doing joint planning on innovation-

    23. JBJeff Berman33:41

        Mm-hmm

    24. LWLauren Wang33:41

        ... which is a big step forward for us-

    25. JBJeff Berman33:43

        Mm-hmm

    26. LWLauren Wang33:43

        ... versus in the past, we would just, you know, go to a sales meeting once a year and be really lucky to get that meeting. Now we're kind of in this more strategic partnership, um, field, which I appreciate. And I think international will be something really important for us in the future. I lose sleep over the fact that 51% of the world's population could use our products, yet they don't know about us or can't get them. Um, and, you know, we're gonna need more capital to be able to spread the word in order to do that, but in the meantime, very focused on growth and scaling in the US.

    27. JBJeff Berman34:19

        Thank you so much for joining us today.

    28. LWLauren Wang34:21

        Thank you so much for having me. It's been so much fun.

    29. JBJeff Berman34:24

        Flex is making huge waves in the market for menstrual products by staying fiercely focused on improving their customers' experiences. It's remarkable that Lauren scaled a quest to solve her own health struggles into a business with products on more than 30,000 store shelves. She's an incredible example of how tenacity can empower an entrepreneur to break through amid even the most entrenched competition. I'm Jeff Berman. Thanks for listening. [outro music]

Episode duration: 35:03