Anne Fulenwider: Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Alloy Women’s Health
Episode 305
Anne Fulenwider, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Alloy Women’s Health, wanted to change the conversation around women’s post-reproductive health. She started her telehealth platform in 2021 to connect consumers - with experts in menopause and perimenopause and other consumers in their own women’s health community. We learn what it’s like going from Editor-in-Chief of Marie Claire to founding her own company. What has she learned in creating a company that has meaning and purpose that is changing people’s lives. You don’t want to miss this episode for sure! On this inspiring episode of #TheKaraGoldinShow.
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List of links mentioned in this episode:
https://www.instagram.com/myalloy
https://twitter.com/anneFulenwider
https://www.instagram.com/annefulenwider
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-fulenwider-b367181b7To learn more about My Alloy Women’s Health:
https://myalloy.com/
Transcript
Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be I want to be, you just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi, everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi, everyone, it’s Kara Goldin from the Kara Goldin show. And I am so thrilled to have my next guest here, Anne Fulenwider, who is the co founder and CO CEO of alloy women’s health, and I am absolutely thrilled to see her I haven’t seen her in a couple of years. She is such a rockstar. I knew her actually when she was at Mary Claire as editor in chief. But even prior to that she was in other incredible, incredible positions with Vanity Fair and a few others that were amazing. And let me talk a little bit about alloy women’s health. It is a site that is basically a platform that connects consumers with board certified physicians who are experts in menopause and perimenopause. And they are also doing some, I guess, prescription home delivery. We’ll talk a little bit more about that. And I think more than anything, I love, love, love the backstory of why and did this and how she saw a problem and really wanted to solve the problem. And she had ideas on how to do that. So that is what every great entrepreneur definitely sets out to do. And I should also mention that I loved Ann’s entrepreneurial spirit too, when she launched the power trip. So many people have heard about that. I believe it’s still continuing today. And so even when you leave, you can definitely have impact on many things, including what she did for entrepreneurs. So welcome. Welcome. Welcome, Ann.
Anne Fulenwider 2:23
Thank you, Kara. It’s so good to be here. It’s so great to see you again. Yeah, super excited
Kara Goldin 2:27
to see you too. And very excited to see and hear a little bit more about what you’re doing. So let’s start at the beginning. I’d love for you to share a little bit about what you’re doing here. How would you describe Aloe women’s health?
Anne Fulenwider 2:42
I would say first of all, that I was so inspired by you, Kara and all the female entrepreneurs that we covered at Mary Claire. And you know, it’s one of our viewers or magazines really was so inspired there towards the end about the sense of possibility and a sense of change and a sense of this sort of abundance mindset of this whole generation of women who were changing things. And so when my friend Monica approached me, she had gotten a surgical menopause overnight. And so and she’d left the hospital with zero guidance on what to do and how to treat herself took her five years and five doctors. And I was still at Mary Claire. And my real role was always just I thought to tell the story and be plain spoken and down to earth because there’s so much euphemism and misinformation around lots of pieces of women’s health. It’s only about menopause. So that didn’t answer your question. The way I would describe alloy is we are solving the health needs of women over 40, beginning with the symptoms of menopause, which is a giant 55 million women. And we’re doing that in a way where you can not leave your home. You can go online, answer some questions, you know, have access to experts and get the solutions that you need delivered to your home because for so many women at all stages of life, searching for answers and searching for you know, health solutions can really become a full time job. So we want to take this off limits place so they can really enjoy this momentous time in your life when you have so many possibilities like starting a company.
Kara Goldin 4:01
I love it. So did you ever think that you would become an entrepreneur?
Anne Fulenwider 4:07
I mean, for most of my life? No. Right? Like I just when I read it in college, it was not something that anyone in my family had done. I do think that it wasn’t as widely discussed in the culture, certainly in business circles it was but you know, I knew some friends of my parents who started companies, but certainly there wasn’t like, Hey, you got an idea to start a company. I think lots of things have happened, you know, social media, digital operating systems, AWS places that make it even feasible to start a company from your sort of your garage or your backyard or in my case, my my kitchen table, so I had no idea. And then as I was saying, like I met all of you all these amazing women who started companies across the board solving problems that they had that no one else was paying attention to. And I started to get really like, you know, I started to spend as much time as I could with you all and create conferences and panels and meetings and ways in which I could just glean this This mentality. And so by the end of my time very clear, I was dying to be an entrepreneur.
Kara Goldin 5:05
So what was kind of the catalyst behind starting? This? I mean, obviously, you had been around a number of different entrepreneurs who had started companies in different industries, you had a friend who went through a, you know, challenging situation that you cared about, you know, more than anything else. What did you see here that you could actually solve? I mean, definitely, people are trying to get information about menopause, but you didn’t come from healthcare industry, you’re probably, you know, barely touching on the menopause situation, and what was it that you really thought you could accomplish by starting this company?
Anne Fulenwider 5:44
Yeah. So I mean, two answers, really one, just the catalyst, in many ways was my own personal life, my mother died suddenly of a heart attack. And I had just one of those moments. I mean, it’s tragic and sad. But it also was one of those moments, we just kind of look around at your life and think, Okay, wait a minute, none of us had that much time on this planet. What do I want to do with the rest of my life? And how can I be intentional with the way that I use my, my skills and my time left on the planet. And then from a business perspective, and an opportunity perspective, I really, Monica approached me because she’d had her own health issues have been talked about. And she’d had her own journey of trying to find solutions, and really knew firsthand how difficult it was. And I called her the canary in the coal mine, because she had her ovaries or when she was 40, which is 10 years earlier than most women go through menopause. And so when she sort of articulated its problem, I was like, oh, and she came to me because I, you know, because of my experience talking to women at a national international scale. And we kind of weren’t sure, if we made we do a content site, or maybe we should sell something. And we kind of, I was sort of still investigating the problem. And I said, I literally said, out loud, well, we can’t sell hormones, those cause breast cancer, which is actually not true at all. But it is a fact that was put out into the ether. 20 years ago, a study was done called the Women’s Health Initiative. And basically, and I’ll get to that in a minute, and it’s quite a rabbit hole. But I basically sort of being a reporter, editor type person, I thought, Well, why do I have this feeling that there’s something dangerous about hormones, I don’t understand. Like, I’m not sure exactly where that comes from, did the digging don’t dig very far the study has now been, you know, sort of, largely complained about and talked about, there’s a great story in the New England Journal of Medicine a few years ago, Peter Attia on his podcast, where he’s talked about this study as singling for doing the worst damage to women’s health in the past century or so I mean, really put us on the wrong path. It’s a long story. But the study basically put out into the ether, this idea that estrogen causes breast cancer. And without getting into a whole biology lesson, the definition of menopause is 12 months after your last period, your body stops creating estrogen, your ovaries stop producing estrogen, estrogen receptors through your entire body. And really the way to solve most of the symptoms and really also glean the health benefits of you know, a healthier, longer Old age is to replace a little bit smaller scale than you’ve been producing yourself have this estrogen back into your body and it really is widely like the FDA, the North American menopause Society, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and 13 other medical bodies, report that this is safe, and this is the best treatment and the benefits far far outweigh the risks. So long story short, that study 20 years ago, basically through the menopause situation as it was into chaos. So women, doctors stopped learning about menopause and medical school, they were probably not learning that much to begin with. The prescriptions, the United States I think, went from 40% of menopausal woman getting prescribed to like 7%, many, many men were taken off their hormones, including my mother, and many of our of that generation. Basically, what we realized was, if we were not talking to women about estrogen at this stage of their lives, we were doing them a great disservice. And that really led to wow, there’s 55 million women in menopause and there’s only 1000 certified menopause practitioners. That’s a math problem that can be solved by technology. How can we get it sort of democratize access, increased access, using technology to the expertise, the correct information to all the women out there who are suffering and 80% of women in menopause will suffer from moderate to severe hot flashes, which is one of the most complained about symptoms with their 34 Other so there’s a lot of women suffering needlessly.
Kara Goldin 9:26
So, so interesting. And so you started, I guess you were sort of unofficially starting right? Was it right when the pandemic hit? Was that sort of while you were trying to, you know, get together on this and try and figure out how you’re going to start this but then officially, I guess 2021
Anne Fulenwider 9:47
You know, what’s so funny is when we really you know, I left my chair at the end of 2019. And then we officially the I think the company is incorporated like January 1 2020. And at that point, we didn’t know we’re gonna do telemedicine. company but the idea that we thought about doing a telemedicine platform before the pandemic is kind of crazy because it was the adoption rate was so low. And you know, that was sort of a far out idea that you could see a doctor or get medicine or be, you know, prescribe anything without going to the doctor’s office yourself. So, to answer your question, I think I left my job December 31. I, myself got COVID. Two months later, like at the end of that early, early March. And we were off and running, it took us about a year and a half to build it. We launched November of 2021. And so we’re coming up on our one year anniversary. And yeah, the whole thing. I don’t know, I don’t know if I think it took longer than I expected are shorter than I expected. But it’s definitely been a really wild ride.
Kara Goldin 10:45
I bet. So when people go to the aloe site, what are they going to see? You know, what, can the site really help them to do more than anything? Or I should say, what is the kind of the main reason and the main sort of solve for people when they come to your site?
Anne Fulenwider 11:01
So first of all, I will say, being the former magazine editor, that we have lots of beautiful content and really informative, scientifically vetted, medically backed information. We also have some fun articles that, you know, the magazine editor me couldn’t have like, just why do I get worse hangovers in menopause, or, you know, we dress like all the major issues. And then we also just sort of try to inject some humor into this time of life, because I don’t know it’s part time of life that has been like, much parodied or ignored or neglected, or I just think women just need to open up and share and be fun and commiserate a little bit. And then also, most importantly, get scientifically vetted information. So share Malone, who’s our chief medical officer who we’ve heard on a podcast actually, in 2020. She was speaking with Michelle Obama, Michelle Obama’s podcasts, and they were talking about, you know, hot flashes on Air Force One, and why don’t people know about hormones? And why do people think they’re dangerous, and Sharon Mullen was just fantastic. And we’ve sort of tracked her down as we become our chief medical officer. And she talks all the time about we’re not, you know, drug pushers, we’re not medicine pushers, we’re really information pushers. So the thing that I’m the most proud about on our site is the information that said, When you come to our site, you can take a quiz or it’s a medical intake form about your symptoms and your age and your medical history. It takes about five minutes, we’ve really honed the the questionnaire to be as as thorough as it needs to be and as quick as it can be. And then we have MDS on the other side who review your information and make recommendations to you about what you what your solutions are. And we prescribe plant based bioidentical estrogen and progesterone, if you have a uterus, I mean, do that in multiple form factors. So pill patch. And we also have vaginal estradiol cream, and we sell a probiotic that we created with some experts on the diverse microbiome that we all need to hate to age helpfully. So you fill out your thing, you get the recommendations, 24 hours later, you’re approved, and are given another recommendation, you decide then to purchase and we send you to your home on a quarterly basis, the medication and supplements that are the probiotic If you ordered it that were prescribed to you. And then throughout that process, we have unlimited best text messaging with your doctor. Doctors do answer the texts. And we have, you know, ongoing support groups, Monica and I still have we host a zoom support group on Thursdays, which has been phenomenal getting to know our patients. And we also host seminars and webinars with experts, because we have found that there’s such a hunger for this information and getting the experts to talk. I mean, I can talk about it all day long. But at the end of the day, I’m not a medical doctor, but getting you know, the sexual health experts, the mental health experts and simply the OBGYN and endocrinologist who are the menopause experts. People are just craving that information because we’re so lost on what to do as these, what we’ve been told are symptoms of aging, which are really symptoms of estrogen leaving your body. You know, we’re getting older, but certainly all these things we’ve been told about that are sort of just suck it up. You know, you don’t have to and women are desperate for answers. So long story short are our webinars are well attended.
Kara Goldin 14:16
So interesting. You and I were talking about another company that I recently interviewed fertility IQ on here that is one of the things that Jake talked about was you know, the doctor, some of the doctors that they are interfacing with, they’re definitely not fans of fertility IQ because they’re sort of, you know, in their mind kind of acting as the experts in some way and so curious, like as you go along. Do you feel like there’s a, you know, group that you’re having to interface with that maybe it’s not, maybe they’re not in your top list of doctors that you’re recommending or something that is challenging as you start to grow this
Anne Fulenwider 15:00
Ah, so interesting carats but definitely a question that investors ask us, I think what we found in practice is that so few doctors are even treating or talking about menopause that I think we’re serving a need, even for the medical establishment. But just a lot of people haven’t gotten to this, a lot of people, a lot of a lot of OBGYN is get into the business because, or the practice of what their, their medicine field is because they want to deliver babies, and they want to treat reproductive stage women. And so they’re just simply as a dearth of doctors who are experts in this field. And those who are the experts are really, we’ve got some of the best experts in the field on our medical advisory board. You know, we’d certainly advocate for women to still go to the doctor, you still need mammograms, you still need all the things you know, of course, if you have a complex case, or you’re bleeding, or there’s so many things that we need to go to the in person doctor for. But we have also found that a lot of doctors don’t really, you know, only one study has 20% Another study has 6% of residents feel that they have the comfort level to even speak to their patients about menopause. So an awful way to talk about later stages of this company, how we might be sort of the, you know, the doctor who doesn’t feel comfortable doesn’t have the training, you know, took that one day class about menopause and medical school, we could partner with those doctors and say, you know, here offload your, the menopause piece of this to us. And we’ll make sure that your patient keeps coming back to you for all the things that she needs to come to your office for. But we’ll kind of take this thing off your plate, because maybe it’s not so interesting to you don’t want to do it. I mean, the most cynical people will remind me that menopause is not a profit center for doctors. It’s not procedural base. It’s not you know, there’s all sorts of people say, oh, there’s no money in it. And we just can’t believe that attitude. You know, 55 million women need help. We’re not trying to gouge anyone on prices. But there certainly is a need here major need and a huge market.
Kara Goldin 16:45
Well, and I think people like Maria Shriver, for example, who has a lot of interest in studies around Alzheimer’s have also tied much of hormone dysfunction to Alzheimer’s as well. So that’s another piece that is there’s a lot of crossover, it’s not just as simple as how women are feeling or how they’re aging.
Anne Fulenwider 17:07
Yeah, exactly. I mean, we certainly chair Malone, our chief medical officer says, you know, just improving almost quality of life would be enough, you know, why is that not enough actually, to met to warrant you know, major scientific study, etc. But the prevent, you know, the protective pieces of estrogen, you know, the biggest killers of women, heart, brain bones, Osteoporosis is a real killer. And estrogen is protective of all of those organs. And those are the things that really plague us as we age, you know, my mom died of a heart attack. Alzheimer’s, I think two thirds of Alzheimer’s patients are women. And there’s lots of really interesting work being done now about cognition and hormones in the brain, as we age. And as soon as FDA approved to prevent osteoporosis, which is, you know, there’s terrible stats, like if you are an older person, and you fall and break your hip, there’s a really high chance that you might die within that year. So keeping our bones strong as we age, especially as women is super important. And estrogen is a Sharon says it is like calcium, vitamin D are the bricks. But estrogen is the wheelbarrow that brings them to the right place. So we go on and on about estrogen, because it is such a major gap in our knowledge as women and in the medical profession. But really, we want women at this stage of life to feel heard. You know, it’s really wonderful that people like Maria Shriver, and lots of others now are talking about this in the open. Wanda Sykes has a great piece on it, there’s plenty of celebrities talking about this. And more and more doctors in the space are becoming better known. Michelle Obama talking about it really helped with you know, when she’s speaking with Sharon Malone on the on the podcast, because really, it’s very isolating, if you think that what you’re going through is not is just sort of, oh, I just gotta guess I’m getting old. And I feel bad to know that you’re not alone. And that this is completely normal, and that there have been solutions is probably I think, the best service that we can provide.
Kara Goldin 18:53
Totally. And I think community is something that obviously, you guys are doing really, really well in LA too, and bringing people together to talk more about it is so critical. So you’ve now worked inside of large companies scaled Mary Claire and done amazing things. What’s kind of the big thing that you’ve seen in in founding a company that you just didn’t realize you’d been around a lot of entrepreneurs, but you’re like, Oh, I had no idea that it took all of this.
Anne Fulenwider 19:24
Almost everything. Like I thought I knew so much because we kept interviewing founders and doing events, and talking and hosting panels. And now I realize I mean, everyone, like yourself included, who I’ve seen since then, since we started the company, like, oh my god, I had no idea. I think there’s so many different things that I’ve learned, I guess, the difference between being successful in a corporate environment and being successful when you’re kind of like, you know, taking a machete through a jungle and try to clear a path path requires really different parts of your brain skills, competence, you know, you really have to trust your gut even more. And so Sometimes you’re making decisions that will impact things to come and you don’t know if it’s the right decision. And you really, it’s a lot more. First of all, a lot more exciting. It’s a lot more invigorating, and it’s a lot more, you know, sort of a thrill. And then it’s also much more terrifying, because every move
Kara Goldin 20:17
Yeah, I love the visual of the machete. I think that that’s true. I mean, it’s so true. And you don’t know what’s behind that bush, right? And you’re trying to figure out, should I go there? Should I or shouldn’t I go there, but the most important thing is to try more than anything and and see whether or not it’s going to work. And you’re gonna go the wrong direction, sometimes, I think is another big lesson that I’ve learned along the way. But you have to be able to get back up again and figure out, Okay, that didn’t work. And here’s why it didn’t work, and now go in the next direction. So, but I love that analogy for sure. We always talk about challenges and failures. I feel like there’s not enough discussion around like, what did you do wrong? Along the way that I think, you know, we can learn from but also people listening can learn from Is there anything in, you know, the early days of starting where you’re like, Okay, well, that didn’t work. Now. You know, here’s what I learned. And here’s how I got back up.
Anne Fulenwider 21:17
Yeah, I mean, gosh, so many things, I think it all comes down to, I sort of kept thinking that someone else knew more about this than I did. I mean, certainly I don’t have a medical degree, I don’t have a law degree, I don’t have a business degree. I’m actually the only one in our leadership team that just has a good old BA. But I kept thinking like, Oh, these lawyers must know what they’re doing. They’re telling us this is impossible. So I guess it’s impossible. And literally, someone said to us, a lawyer said at the beginning, because it’s a very regulated industry, we did not, you know, again, like I did not really intend to go fully into like telemedicine and online pharmacy. So we’ve had to do a lot of lawyers, and one of them at one point. So I literally 25 years of practicing law, I’ve never seen this done. And as if like that was, you know why we couldn’t do it. And I turned to my co founder, like, I know, that’s why we’re doing it. This hasn’t been done. And that’s a problem. And we’ve figured out a way to do really make it happen. The reason you haven’t seen in 25 years is because no one’s you know, addressed this problem before. And certainly there are others now addressing the mental health field, but the mental health problem. And the other thing I’ll say is, I’m trying to forgot to say this about a cliche, we have some early vendor relationships in the couple of partnerships that just weren’t in the end the right ones. And I wish that we had, you know, when you have that machete, and you don’t know, it’s kind of hard to sort of make that actual cut sometimes. And I think sometimes we knew earlier than we ended up acting, that this wasn’t the right fit, and we should have cut it off sooner. And that I think, cost us a little time, which in startup world is also money and resources and all sorts of things that were so we’ve learned to move much faster, more be more nimble. And the thing about the cliche is like trust your gut, which is not to say that in a way that really is impactful or meaningful, but I just learned it over and over again in my career, like that little voice in the back of your head. So he’s really telling you something, and you really have to listen to it, even when it seems a little drastic, or no one around you is saying it, I just can’t tell you how many times I’ve learned that lesson, trust that voice. And still flexing that muscle and growing it. It’s one
Kara Goldin 23:22
thing to be inside of a large company and run running a team. And if you hire the wrong person, and things don’t work out, you just think okay, things don’t work out. But when it’s your idea that you’re starting, and for some reason, you know, you make the wrong hire, or maybe somebody comes to you and says, I quit. I don’t want to do this anymore. You think not your baby’s ugly. I mean, you think your baby’s ugly, and you’re ugly, right? Like you’re you’re feeling very uncomfortable, because this was a big hire for you, right? Like the first person who actually leaves your company. I think I hear this consistently. From founders, you feel like you did something wrong in some way. versus actually, it was the wrong fit. So I think there’s a lot there to that is kind of a big learning experience. And what I always say to founders, too, when you’re going from the first, you know, zero to a million versus a million to 10 million, it’s very rare that you have the same people involved in the company to that you’re going to have different people that are going to be hopefully good just at that stage along the way. And certainly when you get to be over 100 million and you know, there’s a different set of people too, that are better at doing those kinds of tasks that you really need to grow the company as well. So you’re just getting going and getting amazing traction. I’m so proud of you and you’re definitely a forward thinking on really what needs to get done. And as you said there’s you know, some people that are sort of doing something similar are not exactly what you’re doing. How do you feel about you know what you’re achieving in terms of like, when do you know you’re successful at what you’re doing? I mean, what is kind of the goal? Overall, where you’re like we did it, it’s amazing, we finally achieved it.
Anne Fulenwider 25:16
What a great question. I mean, I think in some ways, I mean, there’s no way we’re resting on our laurels, we have so much work to do. But just finding that product market fit, seeing that people were subscribing buying, and then our growth is still going and we’ve hit you know, we’ve exceeded our expectations for a number of members, we call it a membership, because you’re, it’s a prescription that lasts for a year. So your membership is one year and you’re subscribed. As long as your subscription is active, you have, as long as your prescription is active, you have access to our experts and texts and all that. So just the fact that women want it, and they’re doing it and they’re renewing, or you know, the refilling every three months. And that has been a huge boon. It just, you know, in those moments, like when we never thought was going to work, or we’re trying to get the tech to work and like, was this a good idea, I don’t know why it’s taking so long, why it’s so hard to build this and that, and then to finally get it up and running, even in its most basic form last November, it’s been really, really, really gratifying to see that women want this, and that there’s still so many more women looking for it. So that’s, I guess, one milestone of success, I think, you know, trying to convince the rest of the world and the investment community that this is an important piece of the ecosystem I used to think of as something we had to do. And now I realize we just need to find like, couple people, I don’t need to convince the entire VC world that this is worth it. I just need to convince the right people. And we’ve been really fortunate with our investors so far. But those milestones are hard to, I don’t know, the VC world. It’s funny, like when I left Mary Claire and left magazines, I was like, I just whatever my next job is I did not want to have to deal with advertisers. Yeah. And I had some friends in that community. But I just mean like that whole sort of, like, pumping for dollars. And funnily enough, when you’re a founder, you have to do that anyway, with with VCs, who are bringing, in many, many cases, smart people that I’ve learned from but going out and sort of singing for sufferers, is tough. So I guess another measure of success is getting to the next round of funding. But really what I will feel great about is, I think it’s coming to fruition first and faster than we thought. I mean, the cultural conversation around menopause has really changed. I think it’s, you know, partly a function of the great content and alloy, and partly a function of Gen X reaching this moment of love in their life, and just not taking it lying down and just sort of approaching it with each generation. I think since my other generation has been has taken it left lying down a little bit less, I guess, is the question. So I think the really big most successful common is just inevitable. Of course, of course, our one second menopause, of course, you get estrogen if you’re, if it’s available to you, and if you’re eligible, which is like the vast majority of healthy women, and that the conversation becomes destigmatize the way it has around so many other pieces of women’s lives. I mean, it really talks about the millennials every time they get to a certain point in their life, be it you know, getting engaged, getting married, buying buy, they’re getting it prom dress, Rent the Runway and getting to fertility issues and breastfeeding issues and postpartum mental health and buying a house all those stages of life have become so much and buying houses never stigmatize. But money was. But I think that D stigmatization of the conversation that is coming and in the process of happening is probably the largest measure of success. So that was a really long answer, Kara? No, I
Kara Goldin 28:25
love it. No, it’s great. Do you you’re only available in the US right now? Correct?
Anne Fulenwider 28:31
Yes. I love that question. Yeah, because so many of our competitors are only available in a few states, we’re available in 50. States. That’s great. That’s DC. And that was a huge, very important to us that we not just serve the coasts, and you know, not really get every every woman deserves access to this care. But I love that, like, so far, just the US but you know, global to come.
Kara Goldin 28:50
That is such an interesting topic as well, that we talked about with fertility IQ, because they have just entered into going outside the US and there’s so many rules that he shared actually around, you know, there’s places that you will be killed for actually, you know, taking fertility is Yeah, and it’s really interesting. So there are there’s a lot of information that is really needed around what you can and can’t do, and especially as people start to live remotely, and they’re living in these locations, I think it’s becoming more and more of a super hot topic. So it’ll be very exciting to see kind of as you guys continue to grow and some of the, you know, hard but important topics I think that people will be looking for will be really interesting to cover. So being a female entrepreneur is a super powerful thing, any words of wisdom and closing to other people who have an idea where you want to get out there and solve problems as you are doing and how, how do you do it? How do you go up again? Since the bushes in the jungle with a machete and keep, you know, trying to figure out how to knock down these barriers,
Anne Fulenwider 30:08
what a great question. I think the only thing I can really say is when it means enough to you, it doesn’t seem like it’s that much of a struggle. It’s a struggle to figure out what the next step which direction the next step should be in. But the fact that you have to take this step, really just I just felt compelled. I mean, by the time I was really ready to jump in, I just almost noon for like a choice. It just felt like it had was a calling that came to me and not to be religious about it. But just that like if you really have a why, if you know the why of why you’re doing this, and especially when that why resonates with tons of other people, it is pretty addictive to just just sort of spread that mission and energy. And so finding the right project or company idea, that really means something to you, in my case is crucial. I know there are plenty of business people who feel differently. But I think not being not coming from the world of business really, it really felt like a mission.
Kara Goldin 31:01
I love it. Well, thank you so much. And it was so great to see you and everybody go on to alloy. And we’ll have all of the information in the show notes as well. But I am sure this is going to be a huge success. And anything that you’ve touch is definitely I’m following because you’re such an inspiration to me. And I’m really, really thrilled that you’re taking this on because it’s a very, very important thing and, and really great company. So I wish you all the best. Thanks, Kara. Thanks all for listening to this episode. We hope you enjoyed it. And I want to thank all of our guests and our sponsors. And finally our listeners keep the great comments coming in. And one final plug if you have not read or listened to my book undaunted, please do so you will hear all about my journey, including founding, scaling and building the company that I founded. Hint we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks everyone for listening and goodbye for now. Before we sign off, I want to talk to you about fear. People like to talk about fearless leaders. But achieving big goals isn’t about fearlessness. Successful leaders recognize their fears and decide to deal with them head on in order to move forward. This is where my new book undaunted comes in. This book is designed for anyone who wants to succeed in the face of fear, overcome doubts and live a little undaunted. Order your copy today at undaunted, the book.com and learn how to look your doubts and doubters in the eye and achieve your dreams. For a limited time. You’ll also receive a free case of hint water. Do you have a question for me or want to nominate an innovator to spotlight send me a tweet at Kara Goldin and let me know. And if you liked what you heard, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts. You can also follow along with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn at Kara Goldin. Thanks for listening
