>> Craig Gould: Monica Molenaar and Anne Fulenwider. Thank you so much for joining me today. You guys are the co founders and co CEOs of Alloy Women’s Health, a telehealth platform which provides science backed solutions and compassionate care for women experiencing menopause and other midlife health challenges. And guys, I, I want to talk to you guys, all about how you guys ventured out, what was the inspiration, what you guys have experienced, your, your lifelong journey that that’s brought you. but there’s a common question I like to ask all my guests which is what are your memories of your first job? So who wants to go first? Monica or Ann? Who wants to tell us about your first job?

>> Anne Fulenwider: Being a waitress in college was really humbling and really hard work and you know, a really sort of formative experience that then when I started out in the professional world, as an assistant to ah, a sort of well known guy in publishing, George Plimpton, it really helped that that humility really came, came in handy. Like really, willingness to scrub the floors if needed or willingness to just show up and do whatever is needed without you know, trying to end up detaching it from what it meant about the future of who you were going to be. turned out to be a really helpful skill. I mean I think just being there as an entry level person to go pick up the groceries if we’re going to throw a book party in his home or you know, make all the calls if we had to follow up on something. Just the really grunt work that because I was excited about the environment I was in and I was learning from people around me. I mean, I guess it’s somewhat of a cliche but just the sort of eagerness and humility, or a good combination starting off.

>> Craig Gould: Okay, so I had no idea that that was your first job. And George Plimpton is probably one of the more intriguing characters of the last 60 years. And so is there anything in particular that you have gleaned from your time with him other than just kind of the this Devil Wears Prada sort of experience as an assistant?

>> Anne Fulenwider: yeah, I mean, gosh, I went from being an assistant to George Plimpton in the Paris Review to working for Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair. It’s funny, like I worked for a lot of big guys in publishing so to have completely pivoted to helping women with their health feels really, really good. But I, and I had a great, great early in publishing. It was a lot of fun. It was the nineties in New York. It was a great piece of culture to be part of. I think what I really learned early on in those jobs is to approach everything with curiosity. And even if you’re stuck with a boring entry level task, what can you get out of it? Just approach it with curiosity and no task. There’s really nothing that sort of in a work environment that you can’t get something out of. And that was really helpful.

>> Craig Gould: So what about you, Monica?

>> Monica Molenaar: Well, it’s funny because my first job was probably my worst job, but I got my husband out of it, so I guess I can’t. We’ve been together for almost 28 years now. We met in 1997, so I can’t really be mad at the job, but I actually took completely the wrong job out of college. I, I really, I, I didn’t, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. I wasn’t that confident, you know, sort of in, I guess in myself and sort of really didn’t understand like the working world yet. And I don’t know, wasn’t prepared. And I wanted to go dance in Mali and with some. An African dance professor that I had taken a class with at Brown, where I was in college. And I ended up getting a job at a consulting firm for the summer so that I could pay for my trip to Mali. And then I was planning to move to Germany and become a waitress. I had worked in Berlin first, spent a summer interning in Berlin and like had a boy and wanted to go back. I mean, I was really like a total free spirit. And I ended up getting the most corporate, you know, management consulting, boring outsourcing, you know, sort of managing cost job that I was totally unqualified for, had no interest in and hated from day one. and, and I did it because I was sort of, I was scared. I, you know, I didn’t have really great support from my parents about sort of what I should be doing. So I just, they offered me a job. It was more money than I expected to have and I sort of like needed it. And it kind of set me off course. Making that wrong decision really set me off course in terms of developing a career, until I got to become an entrepreneur, which sort of started with my own health, with the health story that we’re going to start talking about, you know. So it was just sort of an interesting thing. Like my working life never really took off for a while and I wasn’t sure how to get it back on track until I kind of had to.

>> Craig Gould: I Don’t think that’s an unusual story. I think even I, in my own personal experience, you know, I feel like I wasted some years taking some wrong turns that led to dead ends that I couldn’t exactly figure out how to navigate out of. And my, my parents hadn’t come from a white collar background, but I’m not sure that I had the right mentors to help me get, get in reverse and backed out in, onto a different path. You know, I got there, I mean time proved, but it was just like, you know, you look back and like wow, you know, there, there’s seven years that I probably could have been doing something else if I had only understood.

>> Monica Molenaar: I mean, and I think also part of that is life. Right? You know, you have to, but, but, but it’s really learning from your mistakes. Being able to sort of be self aware and kind of take stock every so many years or whatever point in time to like say am I in the right spot? Is there something else I can do? You know, so just sort of back to Anne’s. Approaching things with curiosity. I think, you know, approaching your own life with curiosity and intention is also really important and something that we’ve definitely learned along the way.

>> Craig Gould: Yeah. And you know, I think something that kind of leads into our conversation about your guys company is you know, not being satisfied with what you have being good enough. I think your guy’s story around your business is women for decades being told this is good enough, this is the way it is. You just need to figure out how to deal with it and quietly drudge on. Can, can you guys talk about the kind of the, the seeds and the inspirations behind your business and maybe kind of give us the, the dime store tour of who Alloy women’s health is.

>> Monica Molenaar: First of all, that was such a great way of putting it. You know, like we have been told that it’s good enough and, and what happened, you know, sort of the, the real Alloy as you said, is a telehealth platform or a really sort of a, a place where women in midlife can. A trusted source for women for their health care and arrests in particular around menopause and all the things that happen to a woman in midlife, which, you know, their weight, sex, skin, hair, all kinds of things start to go haywire. And we are here to help you. but basically what happened was I found myself in a position of going into surgical menopause at age 40. by proactively I was diagnosed with the BRCA gene my mother and grandmother had both had breast cancer. And I proactively removed my ovaries. And nobody told me. I mean, I had been screened for 20 years by that point. Nobody had told me, bothered to mention that I was going into menopause the next day and would be in menopause for the next 50 years and how to manage that. And so, so after five years and five different doctors, including, or maybe I guess the sixth would be an acupuncturist that I went to for general malaise because I just had no idea what end was up at that point. I finally, realized like, there, there has to be a better way. And that was really the seed for Alloy. And by that point I was already an entrepreneur. I became an entrepreneur sort of as a result of this major shift in my life and, and kind of going back to work knowing I wasn’t having more kids and sort of really trying to live my life with intention and, and do things that were important to me and solve problems that I felt personally connected to and that I could really, you know, devote time because there was always. There, were plenty of things that I could spend my time on in my day. But for me, really, I had small children and, you know, like a life. So to take a lot of time, which it takes to be a founder out of my day, it needed to be something I was interested in. And, and so when I was really struggling with menopause and kind of realized, like, I cannot be the only one who’s going through this, and started to do the research and, you know, to really think about, like, how on earth can we solve this problem? What is the problem? Actually, I didn’t even know, you know, I really knew nothing about hormones and stuff. And so when I met Ann, I was like, you know, how to tell stories and how to get information to women. I think we should solve menopause together. And, you know, I know how to run a business or start a business. let’s do this. And here we are six years, seven years later.

>> Craig Gould: I think what’s really interesting about the story is that it’s so personal, even looking back to your first job, how much it being personal means to you. Right. but I think what’s also interesting is that these conversations that I’m having with C level executives, I’m finding that a lot of C level executives had their early starts in public relations that, you know, that first job was doing pr. And you know, one of the things that they say they really gleaned from that was kind of this boots on the ground necessity to hone a story, hone the storytelling skills, be able to build consensus, be able to, you know, have the audacity to reach out to people. And Ann, that, that sounds like your forte.

>> Anne Fulenwider: That’s super interesting though I hadn’t really. I’d never learned that, that a lot of CEOs have started in PR.

>> Craig Gould: It’s funny. Well, you know, I’m talking to a lot of female C level executives and it feels like that’s, that’s the strength.

>> Anne Fulenwider: A lot of women start in pr.

>> Craig Gould: That’s the strength that they’re bringing to the community.

>> Monica Molenaar: Did PR for a couple of years. I did PR myself.

>> Anne Fulenwider: I was the magazine editor for 25. So I do think, I think that one of the things that we saw as a gap is, and I certainly experienced throughout my life as a patient, not just when I got to perimenopause, but is that there’s this really small group of experts, no matter what area of medicine you’re talking about, right? Like they’re, and a lot of them are having the conversation, a very detailed, very informed, really high level and smart conversation, mostly scientific, in a pretty small vacuum. And then that’s very informative to themselves, right? And then there’s this vast population that is not getting any of the information in menopause. That’s magnified because 20 years ago there was a PR problem with the very safe, very, you know, 80 years of safety data, FDA approved first line treatment, estrogen to replace the estrogen. Your body has stopped making perfect solution PR problem 20 years ago. And then it got wiped off the face of the planet. And so there’s 85 million women in perimenopause or menopause and only 2% of them are receiving the right treatment right now, which is just, you know, a crime. And so but there’s all these really, I mean not too many. Only under 2,000 healthcare practitioners in this country are certified in menopause by the Menopause Society. So giant math problem that needs to be solved with technology. And that’s what we saw as the opportunity. But what we really saw as the problem was the story. This like very, very small and you know, too narrow group of people have the information and they’re not by, generally by trade storytellers or even communicators. And so they need to a be better at. And a lot of them are trying really hard. We love the doctors, we, you know, our business is based on them. But there aren’t Enough of them, they’re not getting the right education in menopause. And then the story has been so mishandled and flubbed and misinterpreted that it’s almost impossible. And so the storytelling in our particular case was almost the entire business, you know, actually connecting by technology, the experts to the woman suffering, but then sort of amplifying the need and the problem. And the solution, is really, is a storytelling problem and solution. And so, yeah, I mean I find that like now that I, you know, we started this talking about this seven years ago and every doctor appointment I’ve ever been to since then, I’m sitting there in the room thinking like, you’re not really communicating that well or maybe sometimes they are. And I’m like, oh wow, this is like this. She really knows how to, how to tell this story. And so, yeah, I think, But yes, as a CEO, it was certainly important to our customer base that we were good storytellers. But it’s also really important. We have Learned as a CEO, as CEOs and in a remote company, we built our company in Covid. So we have people all over the world actually working for Alloy now. And and I learned this as editor in chief of Mary Claire magazine. It is really to over communicate as a leader to your team to tell the story and even though you think you’ve told it before, say it again and again and again. And yeah, so I think storytelling is super important in, in, in all of it.

>> Craig Gould: What I’m hearing there is that estrogen has a PR problem that, I mean, it’s almost like nuclear energy. Great promise. All of a sudden there’s one accident and you know, everyone’s like, well, nuclear energy isn’t safe.

>> Anne Fulenwider: That’s such a good analogy. Can we use that later on?

>> Monica Molenaar: That’s brilliant.

>> Craig Gould: So can you tell me about the misconception about the safety of estrogen and what we know now that you know, we didn’t know then and maybe the misconceptions that are continuing to be spread and your guys role in changing that narrative.

>> Monica Molenaar: I think the short answer is that estrogen was the PR problem. Was that a study that was sort of launched and put out into the ether that estrogen causes breast cancer. And we know that unequivocally now not to be true. It didn’t say that in the study. It was widely sort of misreported. but if you actually look even at the numbers in the study, it does not say that estrogen causes breast cancer. And There are many studies that show that not only does it not cause breast cancer, but it also prevents osteoporosis. Osteoporosis, it prevents heart disease. It, you know, it prevents, dementia and Alzheimer’s. We think like there’s, there are very good reasons to take estrogen, to use estrogen. And there’s a timing hypothesis also that you really need to start early in your menopausal transition and keep going to get protective benefits so that you can, enjoy those, you know, the, but not only the better quality of life today. So get rid of all of the symptoms like hot flashes and you know, sleeplessness and moodiness and all the things, but also like have a way longer health span. Avoid UTIs and all kinds of, you know, horrible chronic diseases that are actually going to kill you. but the biggest problem and what we really do solve and sort of how, what we’ve gone about kind of doing is that doctors, because of this PR problem, medical schools stop teaching about estrogen like at all or menopause at all. And so we have almost no doctors who are knowledgeable about, or even health care providers of any sort who are really knowledgeable about menopause. And so what we have done I think and you know, sort of really differently from every other company by really thinking about the problem that we’re trying to solve and the customer that we’re trying to serve and you know, the credibility and the often sort of the authority that we’re trying to offer to people is that we only have doctor prescribers. We give them, a lot of training and tools and community among themselves to have a really collaborative environment to work together. So we, we have doctors coming to us, we don’t even need to recruit them. So we have great providers. We put out really, evidence based information so that women can be informed about, you know, what’s going on in menopause, what’s happening to their bodies, what the possible treatments might be. We offer all kinds of education in ways that women can continue to and get informed and learn about new things, you know, about all the treatments that we offer, but also just sort of what’s going on in this life phase and sort of offer ways that women can feel connected and not lonely because we all, every single, 100% of us go through it and everybody thinks that they’re the only one. It’s a really weird thing. And so, and then we make it easy and convenient and you know, a positive experience that and an ongoing relationship with a doctor who you know, feels connected to you and you feel connected to that person in a way that doesn’t work or exist in the normal sort of in real life healthcare system anymore. So we’ve really tried to reimagine what the whole problem is around menopause and give women, you know, the support that they’re looking for, the ongoing support, the treatments that are going to make them feel better today and tomorrow, you know, and sort of all of the information so that they can make their own decision and have agency in their own lives and do all the things that we’ve just been talking about, live with intentions. Don’t. You don’t have to think about menopause. We’re doing that. You can go off and do the things that you care about, you know, because you’re not up all night and, you know, getting divorced because you, like, can’t have sex anymore for things that can be treated. So these are the, this is what we’re very focused on, as you can tell.

>> Craig Gould: Hopefully women listening do have an OB GYN that they’re regularly seeing. And I think for, for some of those people, they may be saying, oh, well, you know, I’m getting there, to perimenopause, I’m getting to menopause. You know, this is something. I’ll have a conversation with my OB gyn. I don’t need to be talking to a stranger on, on the Internet, about this. But I think I’ve heard you say some really startling numbers about OBGYN training and like, how many actually have any knowledge at all, about the topic?

>> Anne Fulenwider: Yeah, I mean, so we’ve got some funny story like it’s not taught in a medical school. A couple of medical schools have an hour and one of, one of our doctors said, no, it was just a lunch, and learn about menopause and estrogen and hrt, which is, you know, too bad. I do think, you know, OB GYNs, for the most part, a lot of them go into the field to deliver babies. And, you know, there’s a whole part of women’s lives before menopause that is also super important and by the way, also underserved. They’re not. They’re half the counties in the United States do not have an OB GYN who can deliver babies or, you know, do have an OB GYN even to deliver the babies. So, it’s not your ob gyn’s fault that she or he does not know about menopause, but they may really be up because they often have to see patients like, you know, for seven minutes at a time, 25 patients a day, in order to meet the demands of the stakeholders like insurance companies and, and others. and so they don’t have time to get caught up on the science, really. And they have something they’re really good at that they love doing. So the fact is there just really are very, very few. I think there’s a study that said it’s certainly under 20%, it might be under 10% of OBGYN residents, surveyed felt prepared at all to talk about menopause, and, you know, had the right protocol even in mind. And so, you know, we, again, we really value doctors, but there are not enough. And the obgyn who has taken care of you, ideally for many, many years and delivered your babies is just probably not the right person to talk to you about this phase of life. And in many ways, she doesn’t have the time to. And doesn’t have the knowledge. And here’s the other thing is OB GYNs in general are like, menopause affects your entire body. Why do we get stuck with the problem? Right. So you could many, many women go to. I think we surveyed our customers, last summer, and I think a majority of them had gone to at least three doctors. Monica went to five, as you say, before you got the right answer. But because the lack of estrogen in your body affects every single organ system. So you could be going to a psychologist because you’re a bad mood and you’re, you know, having to fill with rage or moodiness or depression. You could be going to a dermatologist because your skin doesn’t feel right or your hair is falling out. You’d be going to, you know, any. A joint doctor because your joints ache. so that a lot a brain doctor because you’ve got brain, fog and you think you might have dementia. We have a real story of a neurologist who said that she had, diagnosed someone with Alzheimer’s who then when they went on estrogen, the diagnosis was gone because her brain cleared. Right. So it didn’t cure Alzheimer’s, but it just made her more able to have cognitive clarity. So it’s really not even, really. All doctors who are treating or seeing women over the age of 40 should have some knowledge of menopause, but it’s going to be a long time till we get there. So for now, we’ve done the work for you in finding the experts, and they all have decades of experience treating menopause. And so. And we make it really easy to communicate with them. You don’t have to leave your home. because menopause is actually, when you do know the facts, it’s universal and it’s. The treatment is. Is very simple. Not every single per. Like, no one woman has a menopause experience exactly like the others, but they all have the same root cause, which is the lack of estrogen. That may show up for me in one way and someone else completely differently. And it does, but which makes it even more confusing for doctors. Right. So. So, yeah, your OB GYN is likely not going to have the answers. That is, those are the numbers. That’s why we created Alloy. So come to Alloy and we’ll help you out.

>> Craig Gould: Can you guys talk about the practicalities of identifying the need, finding this underserved market, but then having to execute and build something from scratch? I’m sure at times it feels like you guys are pushing a boulder up the hill, and that’s part of the storytelling. But there are a number of moving parts in any company like this. And living in a remote work sort of time period. I’m sure there are all sorts of unique challenges. Can you guys talk about how you guys have practically gone about creating and building this and finding the right investors to believe and back you guys?

>> Monica Molenaar: One of the things I always say, and Anne’s heard me say this a million times, is that it’s really not about the idea, it’s about the execution. So, you know, at any one time, at any moment in time, you can be sure that at least 10 other people in the world are having exactly the same thoughts as you and, you know, the same idea, and not everybody’s going to actually go do it, so. And. Or do it well. I think that we have had already so many iterations. Our idea has stayed the same and the, what we’re trying to get to has, you know, sort of our North Star has always been fixed, essentially. But how the stage that you’re at, the type of people that you need, the, you know, the projects that you’re working on, the ability, the technology stack that you have and how robust it is, like, all of that changes over time. And as it changes, I think one of the things that is really the most challenging, but is also the most important is to be able to have a view of what’s going on and be willing to make decisions that are difficult. Like, you know, maybe this person isn’t the right person for the job anymore. We need to think about something else. Maybe this partner isn’t the right partner for us. We had, I mean we, we’ve had a couple of different website iterations. We had a partner, a backend partner that was totally wrong and, and, and had equity in our company and it was, and it’s, you know, so we really had to kind of untangle that relationship, which was tough and required, outside expert professional help to, you know, really get through it. we had, we’ve had a whole bunch of things that, well, we had a, we had a, another backend technical partner that went out of business and we had to, you know, quickly, within a week, basically decide to like, okay, we’re going to build this whole thing ourselves and you know, get, make sure that we had the right people on the team, and sort of give them support also, as we’re are making giant decisions that are, you know, affecting people’s sort of work life and stuff. I think that interestingly being in a remote environment, like, because of the way that Zoom days are structured, like we really can get a lot of work done in a, in a way that I never experienced working in an office. Like, I was very chatty and wasted a lot of time in an office. So I think a lot less time gets wasted sort of during the workday. but it’s, you know, we’ve, we’ve had a, like a movie credits list of people who have been involved in what we’re doing over the last seven years. and we were, we’ve been extremely lucky with our investors. We actually got investment before we even really knew exactly what we were doing. So part of the, the beauty of in incentivizing Ann to leave her job and come fix menopause was that, you know, she needed to leave for something. And we met some fantastic investors who have been, are still with us and on our board and you know, have really been almost served as like co founders with us. you know, so we, we got some money. We knew we had at least something to start with and, and it’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears since then. And you know, I think luckily we have a good relationship and really believe in what we’re doing.

>> Anne Fulenwider: I think one of the things, one of the advantages of starting this company or becoming an entrepreneur after other careers and you know, in our late 40s is that we’ve seen a lot, we’ve met a lot of people and we can pretty quickly discern like if this is someone we do want to work with or don’t want to work with. Whether it be a partner, an employee, a vendor, etc. And then you know, we have made the wrong decisions occasionally and that should just quickly correct. And we have the sort of experience, we have a, we say we have a no assholes rule. You can say that on your podcast. But it sometimes takes us a little longer to realize that. you know, we had a, we had an early. There were a lot of stakeholders that sort of touched the menopause world or women’s health. But you know, the menopause women, menopausal women, just weren’t being served at all. The status quo was almost non existent. But there were certainly a lot of people that kind of touched it in terms of law and business and healthcare. and so we went and got a lot of opinions and we talked to a lot of people. Being able to go ask questions is a good thing. But then also being able to filter through the information and zero in on the important and relevant stuff is also good. So we had one, a very well known telehealth lawyer in the very beginning, you know, we were trying to explain to him what we wanted to do and he just sort of like shook his head on zoom and like I remember his hands up, up by his face going. But this has never been done before. Like yeah, we know, that’s why we’re trying to do, really needs to be done. And so, finding the people, sorting through the various stakeholders that could be helpful was really important.

>> Craig Gould: No, that reminds me of one of my first jobs. They had the sales training. They told this illustration of about a two shoe salesman are sent to this third world country and the first shoe salesman sends a message back saying, I’m here, bad news, nobody here wears shoes. And then the second guy sends back a message, great opportunity, huge market opportunity, nobody has shoes.

>> Anne Fulenwider: Exactly.

>> Craig Gould: You know what I’m hearing there is the ability to pivot. I think that’s critical in startups. I think it’s critical in any part of our business. And for listeners that are even thinking about their careers, the ability to pivot. Because one of the axioms I’ve thought about before is that change happens when the pain of not changing exceeds the. The pain of changing. Right.

>> Anne Fulenwider: Really smart. Yeah.

>> Craig Gould: And so can you talk about having the gumption or having the courage to make a change? You know, whether that is walking away from a career where you’re the, maybe the, the face, of, of a publication or walking away from a technology partner, or walking away from a commitment to a particular path that you thought was settled. How do we find the courage to pivot?

>> Anne Fulenwider: I really love the thing about the sort of pain of not changing being greater than the pain of staying. And I think one of the things I just recently was talking about is a very different way of saying the same thing, which is that when you’re raising children, which both Monica and I have done, and you’re kind of like you’re in this great two nap cycle, right, where they both, they take a nap in the morning and take a nap in the afternoon and you’re like, this is so great. I get two sort of two hour chunks of time and like we got this and then all of a sudden they just won’t go down for the second half. They won’t go down. You spend all afternoon trying to get them to go down. Now you’re oh like, oh, this isn’t working anymore. They’re just a one nap kid now. Right? So, so that’s very mom way of thinking about it. But I do think, people ask me all the time about leaving Mary Claire and Azure in chief job. I loved, you know, I loved my whole career there. But I also really, really quickly to speak about my own experience, got to meet a whole bunch of entrepreneurs. We started a conference for female entrepreneurs that was just. And to me it was most exciting story. You know, this is probably the, throughout the aughts and, and teens, but we were seeing more and more women basically get to a st that wasn’t working for them. Whether it’s buying a prom dress, getting married, having a baby, buying a house even, none of the, none of the status quos were satisfactory to this generation of people. And so they kind of, instead of throwing up their hands, you know, they were like the shoe salesman who saw no shoes and said, oh great, I’m going to change this phase of life for all women now. And so that was super, super inspiring. And then I also just was really inspired by an entrepreneur sense of possibility and really, this sort of positive potential feeling as opposed to like, oh my God, what are we going to do now about this other problem? So by the time I left Mary Claire, it really was people say like, mom must have been so scary. And I was like, no, it’s the most obvious and easy decision I ever made in my life. And a little bit of that has to do with naivete. I had no idea what I was getting into. But, but also really coming to a time in my life when I had really worked really hard for other people. For 25 years. And, my mother passed away and I had an opportunity to you, which was horrible. But it also gave me an opportunity to kind of look at my life from a 30,000 foot view and say, well, what do I want to do with the rest of it now? And so when Monica and I met and she brought this idea to me, it was really, really great timing. And we find that with a lot of people that we hire, a lot of people come to us having just reached that moment in life, whether it be at our age or earlier. like, I really just am in a moment where I want to reconsider and think about what’s important to me and be intentional about what I’m putting out into the world. So that’s sort of about the career pivot. And then I’ll quickly answer the leaving the vendor pivot, which, takes a lot of courage. But in this case, it’s not necessarily just the pain of the thing of the present being worse than not changing, but it’s also like, look, this is a business we’re building, and if we don’t make decision quickly enough, none of this is inevitable. No one owes us this company. We have to get rid of this vendor or change this relationship or break up with this lawyer or whatever. because basically it’s us or them. And we’re building this company and we believe in it. We’re really passionate about it. We’ve seen how much we’re helping women. to give that up because we’re afraid to make a change is just not an option.

>> Monica Molenaar: I think having a co like this is also where our relationship has been really important. That like, those are really hard things and hard decisions to make. And, you know, you have to be really confident if you’re there on your own and you have to, you know, or have. You can’t do any of this alone. None of it. You can never know. There is no sole entrepreneur. So you need to always have some sort of team or people or a confidant or somebody to help you. But this is. It’s tough, you know. And so I think our relationship has really sort of been really good from the beginning because we do. We. We overlap in a lot of ways, but we always laugh because we both have, like, we both were in New York City and sort of a rough, within two years age and kind of have similar friends. But like, like everybody that Ann knows, I know the sister, but we don’t know the same people. So we have this. We’ve like, sort of lived These very, very complimentary, you know, complimentary life. So we, we, there’s a lot of sensibility that we share, but our skills are complementary. And so I think, you know, that’s important and has been really a really key part of our success that after all of these meetings, we regroup. Like, what, what did you think? What did you think? And usually, luckily, we agree, you know, like, we both, we, we haven’t had any, you know, big decisions that we haven’t agreed on. So that’s been helpful.

>> Craig Gould: I really don’t talk to that many CO CEOs. And so I guess the curiosity, from my side is, is there ever frustration that it’s not that, we have twice as much CEO? You know, one CEO still wants to talk to the other, you know, because maybe they don’t feel like there’s total autonomy. Like, are there any challenges to the relationship?

>> Anne Fulenwider: I will say quickly, Monica has been an entrepreneur in a different way before, so let her answer more fully. But, as editor in chief of a magazine, so being at the top of an organization, that one really lonely, right? Like, you’ve got a lot of people below you and a lot of people stakeholders above you, whether they be in your corporation or advertisers to whose money you’re asking for all the time. And your peers are barely really severe competitors. And so the reason I started the power trip is because I wanted to meet with lots of other women at the top of their organization so that we could commiserate, collaborate, and at a very high level exchange whatever help we needed. And it was over and over and over again. What I learned bringing those women together is that everyone felt that way. And it was very rare that they were in a room with people at their same level who didn’t need anything from them. And so they could really ask a lot. And I’ll just add to the autonomy piece is that, I think partly because we did start this after other careers and lives in our late 40s, there’s a sense that our egos are not really wrapped up in specific decisions. And I think it could be proven ourselves elsewhere over and over again. And so we’re just really about the project that we’re working on. And so, you know, we trust each other, having done this now for a while, to make the decision if one of us isn’t in the room and, and if, and if we need the other person, then we’ll just like WhatsApp them and get the answer no matter what. I mean, I’ve called Monica. She Lives in Europe, and lived in New York when we first started. But I’ve called her at three o’ clock in the morning and she’s answered the phone. just really, really, really open lines of communication. But I do think we benefit from bouncing each other’s ideas, bouncing ideas off of each other and simply having a commiserator when you need one and a collaborator.

>> Craig Gould: So it sounds like 20 hours a day there’s a CEO awake and working somewhere.

>> Anne Fulenwider: That also helps.

>> Monica Molenaar: Exactly.

>> Anne Fulenwider: But Monica, you have a really good point of view that I like to hear about. like your previous experience being an entrepreneur versus why you like this one.

>> Monica Molenaar: Oh, that’s funny because I was like, that was a perfect answer. well, yeah, so I did. I started a very different business before. Also very personal. I was in the food space. I love cooking. It’s kind of how I relax and express myself in a lot of ways. And I care about what I eat and you know, and I, and it was, it was actually a really, it’s a small business but it was also a really successful business because it kind of hit the waves of like people cooking and becoming foodies of vegan desserts and gluten free. And like, we hit a couple of different trends, which was really interesting. But I started that with two partners.

>> Monica Molenaar: We really didn’t have clear lanes and we’re stepping on each other’s toes all the time. And it was, it was. I learned a lot in that experience. I learned sort of to your question earlier about kind of how do you have the gumption. One of the partners in that business, whose, whose idea it initially was actually, was just one of these people. She had been an entrepreneur before and she was just like, I will call anybody and go like we, we got a lease for a space in Chelsea Market when we didn’t have a business. We had shown them a few samples on a piece of lumber that we got on a lumber yard with a piece of paper and you know, like, this is what we want to do. And they were like, great, that’s creative. And then we were like, oh, okay, well we’ll start a business now. And sort of that’s how that was like really, really bold, you know. And then we actually, the business still is, has survived. We started it in 2015 actually. I think we opened January of 2016. But so it’s, it’s still around. but you know, it’s. But, but, but two of us, there were three of us and only one took it forward because at a certain point we really just couldn’t, you know, all survive in this little business and, and not have the trust and not have the respect and not, you know, and not have the clear lanes and sort of the really. And we tried. It wasn’t really anybody’s fault, but it just, it just didn’ if, I.

>> Craig Gould: Were going to do a word map of these conversations I’ve had with C level executives, a couple of words that keep coming up over and over again and I hear it in our conversation today. And one, one is curiosity and the other is trust.

>> Monica Molenaar: Couldn’t agree more. Yeah, I mean, I think curiosity is.

>> Anne Fulenwider: The key to everything. It’s the key to a successful marriage. Just approaching problems with curiosity. And so I think, you know, really when we started we just knew menopause is a problem and we didn’t even really understand why. We were all confused about it. And it was our curiosity to figure out why that got us to discover the study that was done 20 years ago. It wasn’t in the press at that time. No, one was talking about it. And so we kind of got to the bottom of that problem. and had we not had that curiosity about our customer and what she was experiencing, then we wouldn’t be here. trust is harder. I think it’s earned. And, when Monica and I did sort of serendipitously get this, funding, I had a completely different conversation with someone when I was still a magazine editor who basically said that he was looking for a menopause company. It was wild. But we hadn’t known each other that long, to be honest. When we decided like, okay, yes, we’ll take that money and we’ll go start a business. And there was an implicit trust. And I remember looking at Monica being like, wait, should we like, do some sort of personality test to make sure that we’re compatible or something? and probably that would have been a good idea. We did that later on, with our staff, which is really helpful. But, I think you cannot do it on your own. There’s no way you will fail if you’re not going to share the responsibility and trust others with the problem. And so I guess my approach to that would be, you really have to get everyone mission aligned. You have to be careful as possible hiring highly skilled people for specifically defined roles. And you have to also really, I mean, Monica and I have made the whole business out of hiring people who know a lot more than us in a certain vertical, trusting them to do their job and letting them do it. And I think in that way we’ve created a great culture as well.

>> Craig Gould: How do you develop trust with your customers or with the people that come to you? I think sometimes that comes from a place of authenticity. What do you guys think?

>> Monica Molenaar: No, I think that’s, that’s totally right. We do a lot of things to establish trust with our customer. I think first of all, Ann and I are out there sort of being authentic. Whether it’s on social media or showing up at events or you know, just meeting people within the space. Like we’re, we’re we really do care about this. We really do enjoy the sort of experience and creating massive change, you know, for women, not only in the United States, but we’re really part of like a global movement that is kind of making change, like making a really big impact on women’s health and women’s lives. So we show up a lot. We only have doctors as I mentioned, mainly obgyns. We have a couple of urogynecologists who prescribe for us and we utilize them and their talents with webinars, with we do a lot of expert webinars and YouTube videos and, or that we put up. We put the webinars and other content on YouTube so that women can really self serve and understand who the people are that are delivering this information. They’re doctors, they’re experts in the field. We do support groups with our customers, so that people can drop in and whether it’s Ann and I, who we used to run them all ourselves, we have a community manager who’s fantastic, who runs them now and you know, other just ways, putting ways together out there for women to get together and to you know, to understand who we are, our point of view, really communicate with them, you know, in different ways.

>> Anne Fulenwider: I think it really also started and helps that we are also the customer.

>> Monica Molenaar: Right?

>> Anne Fulenwider: Like we, we are the woman. We know what she’s going through and we. You talked about authenticity. It’s 100% one of the most important things that, that we can show up with. But we also talk a lot about validation and listening to her. This woman has not been heard or seen and we have created a place where she feels heard and seen and that’s you know, turns out extremely important and it’s extremely valuable. And once she does feel seen and heard and then she actually starts to feel better within two weeks, then we’ve got our trust and, and we love them. We Love all of our customers. We listen to them. Like, our whole product development line is based on what she has told us she needs. Like, we started off solving the pain of the acute menopause symptoms with hrt, but then, you know, once you’re sort of back to baseline, it’s like, okay, well, I’m also really, like, my skin is kind of creepy and old feeling, and my hair is falling out, and my sex life isn’t that great. And so she started telling us what else she needed. Wait, I’ve got. I’ve gained 20 pounds. I can’t lose it no matter what I do. And so we just started adding things. Things because of our mutual respect, I think, and trust in each other.

>> Craig Gould: One last thing I wanted to talk about was, second acts. And I think it’s really apropos because, I mean, menopause is really. It really is like this second act, right? But I mean, for executives, whether female or male, that are in their late 30s and maybe feel like they’re stuck, we don’t always see the capabilities for that. That second act. I guess I would just ask you guys, you know, what words of insight, what inspiration can you provide to somebody who is maybe where you guys found yourself a dozen years ago in terms of navigating or broadening their horizons, in terms of kind of grasping that. That brass ring?

>> Anne Fulenwider: I mean, not to beat a dead horse here, but I really do think it goes back to curiosity and just start asking questions. I mean, I think I. I was, I think I was at Mary Claire for another two years after I decided that I really wanted to do something else, and I just started meeting with people, talking to people. It’s amazing how many people actually, you know, there’s, The reason podcasts, I think, are so powerful and. But everyone wants to be the hero of their own story, and they. And they have a story to tell. And so they’re actually pretty willing to talk to you for at least half an hour over coffee about what they do, or how they did something or what change they made. And so just ask the questions, reach out in whatever way possible. We got our chief medical advisor because we emailed her after hearing her on a podcast. You know, so ask a lot of questions, meet with a lot of people, and just open yourself up to any kind of idea.

>> Monica Molenaar: I was going to say the exact same thing, which is why, I guess we’re good. We’re good at this together, but m. But, yeah, no, it’s. It’s really, that sort of being Vulnerable. And, you know, just every day is a new day and a new opportunity to get your curiosity back and to meet somebody new and, you know, to share your idea. The 99 likelihood is that they are not going to steal it. So share your idea, get feedback. You know, I’m like a relentless optimizer, so I’m always trying to make things better. My kids know when we go into a restaurant, I’m probably not going to love the first table that we get. I might ask for a second one, you know, so if it’s. If it’s. If it doesn’t feel right to you, then keep trying to make it better, you know, and. And that applies in so many things. That’s what. But whether it’s in the business or in your life or, you know, like, just keep going and, and figuring out, like, what really is important to you. What are you trying to solve for? Where are you trying to get? I like to look at the horizon and then work my way back and figure out, you know, what’s. There are going to be multiple pathways to get there potentially. But at least if I know where I’m going, it me sort of a guidepost. And I think that’s sort of apropos of what we’ve done with Alloy. Like we, we recently looked, found it, looked back in an email that we had sent to a doctor in 2018, I think, and talked about what it was that we were trying to offer women, what we wanted to create, and it’s exactly what we’ve done. But the steps to get there have, you know, there is no roadmap. You have to really create it yourself and be willing to live with a lot of uncertainty along the way as you keep refining and know that it’s not going to be perfect. That was a very tough thing for me as an entrepreneur to launch something that was not only not perfect, but probably not good. And just make it better and better and better over time and be willing to put years into it was a really new experience.

>> Craig Gould: Guys, I feel like time has flown and we could spend a lot more time talking about this, but Monica, Ann, I really appreciate you guys being with me today. If people wanted to follow your journey, if maybe somebody’s listening, that could really use your services. Where should we point people to join your tribe or take advantage of what you guys are offering?

>> Anne Fulenwider: They can go to myalloi.com MyAllo.com is our website. You can really quickly be connected to a doctor and ask any questions that you have. Ah, you start to intake form, but there’s also just tons of information on there. We have a YouTube library of experts talking about this. we have tons of really, you know, solid medically vetted information on our blog. On our blog. And our Instagram account is filled with our doctors talking about this. So our, our Instagram is also myalloy.

>> Craig Gould: Well, again, Monica and Ann, I really appreciate your guys time. I really appreciate you guys being my guest today. Today.

>> Monica Molenaar: Thank you so much for having us.