Cindy Eckert - The Woman Who Sold “Female Viagra” For Over $1,000,000,000+

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What is going on everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode, we have Cindy Eckert here with us. Cindy Ecker is an American entrepreneur who has built and sold two pharmaceutical companies over a distinguished 24 year career in healthcare and only the last 10. She has started and sold two businesses for more than $1.5 billion. First, Slate Pharmaceuticals, which redefine long acting testosterone treatment for men. Then Sprout Pharmaceuticals, which broke through with their first ever FDA approved drug for low sexual desire in women. Dubbed the female Viagra by the media. After selling the company for $1 billion in 2015, she successfully fought to get the drug back and launch it on her own terms. This conversation with Cindy Eckert is by far one of my most amazing conversations with an entrepreneur who has not only built a $1 billion company, but but has truly redefined an industry when the odds were stacked against her. So before we dive into the episode, I want you to please take a screenshot of this episode, post it on your Instagram story. Tag Cindy Eckert, tag myself so that other people can listen to the episode as well. And last but not least, enjoy the episode. What is going on everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode, we have Cindy Eckert here with us. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Cindy.

Oh, it's awesome to be here. Finally, Casey, I feel like we've been trying this for a while. I'm so excited to be here.

Absolutely. So number one, I am so impressed with your story. You've built and sold two pharmaceutical companies and I know that we got connected through Dan Fleshman and we've Just known each other, but this is our first time having a sit down conversation.

We're social media friends, though. I feel like I'm constantly saying to Casey, oh my God, great guest, great show.

Yeah, exactly. But I really want to ask you, because you have so much of an amazing story, how did you get involved in the pharmaceutical business? Because that's not something that many people dive into.

Well, I'm going to tell you and your crowd is going to appreciate this because I was really. It was much more simplistic than that. And that is that I'm really a business person at heart. From the time I was a little girl, I really loves, like, what makes some businesses exceptional and others, like, you know, what builds loyalty in essence. And so when I got out of college, I wanted to work for Fortune's most admired company. That was my single criteria. I'm going to go work for the best. If I learn from the best, I can take it anywhere. And I'm telling you, Casey, it could have been an aerospace company, it could have been a oil company. It was a pharmaceutical company at the time. It was Merck Pharmaceuticals, which is a, you know, a huge pharma company today. And that's what started me on that path, is going to learn from the best. I'll tell you what I learned really quickly. Two things. One, I don't fit in big environments because I want to be heard. I want to make a difference and make a mark. And two, I love science. And that was sort of the surprise. I didn't chase pharma because I was a scientist, but when I got there and I saw the difference it could make in people's lives and I wanted to stay but in an environment in which I could make a bigger mark.

Yep. Wow. Very cool. So you started Sprout Pharmaceuticals and what year was it?

So that was in 2011. And that was my second company, but it's easier. Yeah. My first company was actually called Slate and like, truly, the name says it all right. Clean slate. I was going to do it on my own terms. I had been in the business for a while. You know, I had enough people in my contact list that I thought I could do it for myself. And. And I was in an industry that, like I said, I love for what they could do, but I don't really love how they got it done. And so like a little bit of, you know, I think I can do this better or at least I'm going to make my own messes instead of cleaning up other people's messes. That was clean Slate. I'm going to do this on my own, on my own terms. And that being that process of building Slate is what led me to Sprout, which I'm best known for, this company because the whole world has heard of female Viagra at this point. And that's what we were all about.

Yeah, I was about to ask about that because you created the female Viagra. Where did that come from? And what was your drive to create that product?

I'll tell you, I'm driven. I'm fueled my whole life by injustices. And there were 26 medications for men. I'm going to say it again. 26 FDA approved medications for men and not a single one for women? Are you kidding? Like, you know that math doesn't make sense. And here's the thing, Casey. In my first company, Slate, I built one of those companies in men. So I had one of those 26 products. And so I really understood the space, the science in the space and the complete inequity that women didn't have options of their own. And that fired me up. That was really why I got on that path. I actually made this crazy decision to take Slate. And, you know, it's hard. It's a stage startup. Like, you hit all the road bumps. I finally had gotten it to a place where, like, sales looked like this, and I sold it and everybody was like, what, you're going back to zero? And I went back to zero to take it on for women.

Wow. So when you sold Slate, how. What did you take from that experience into this new company, Sprout Pharmaceutical? Because I'm sure it was a whole learning curve. So.

Oh, crazy.

What was that transition like? You know, having a successful exit, I'm sure that's something that every entrepreneur strives to have a big exit. So going from that to then starting a brand new company to solve another problem, Just bring us to that transition period.

Okay, through your mind, I'm going to tell you the transition and I'm going to see what your reaction is. So here's what I did. I was so bound and determined to do this for women. That again, made this decision to sell off this company in men. I literally sprouted out of it one day before I sold it. That's why it was Sprout. And the next day I went to work on Sprout, so there was no celebrating. I sold it for hundreds of millions of dollars. And I didn't take a breath. And I didn't take a breath because I was so convicted that this was the right thing to do, that this was a mission to be on. Did I take lessons with me 100% because I stepped on tons of landmines? I still do today. I will say that. But in building the first business, the truth is, the biggest lesson I learned was actually from my sale that I applied to my next company. So can I tell that story or is it premature? Okay. So when I sold off Slate, you know, many times when you sell a business, you get money. You either get cash or stock upfront, and then you participate in, like, a royalty stream or some kind of milestone payments. So when I sold Slate, I got a check up front, a big check. But then I also got to participate in royalties, mailbox money for years for all my shareholders. And it was governed by a provision called best efforts. That's like standard legal language, a best efforts clause. Okay. But then what you realize when you enter into a contract with somebody like that is my best efforts, and your best efforts are different. So you're constantly sad that they're not putting what you would put into it. So when I sold Sprout, I'm fast forwarding a little bit of my story. I sold Sprout, I wrote a better contract. I wrote a contract in which they were bound by really specific obligations. What would they spend on marketing? How many salespeople would they have those kind of basics? And when they didn't do that, I had an opportunity to get it back. So I'm fast forwarding my story, but, you know, Sprout, I sold, and I got it back.

Yeah. So when you got it back and, like, when did you make the decision that you wanted to get it back? Right, because you sell this company, you could be doing anything with your time in the world.

Yeah. Okay, here is this crazy story, everybody. So I had this incredible journey through the FDA to finally break through with the first ever. It doesn't actually work like Viagra. It works on women's brains, but it's the first drug ever in the world for women's libido issues. So we break through. It was like a tale of two sexes going through. Viagra got approved in six months, and it took me six years with this drug. It was a constant struggle, a very public conversation. So I win and I win. Science won, but women won. When we did, two days later, I saw the company for a billion dollars up front. A billion. Because it met such a huge need for women. And the idea was, they're going to march it across the globe. They're going to keep My team, who were so committed to this mission, then their business hit a road bump and they put it on the shelf. They got rid of me. They got rid of all of my team. And you know what? I didn't fight that hard for women to finally have this option for it to go back on the shelf. So I started right away going back at them, and thank goodness for that contract. I ended up getting it back for nothing. But my shareholders all kept the billion dollars.

Wow, that is so fascinating. Like, when you sell a company for a billion dollars, I want to ask you, just, you know, starting off, you're a scientist at heart. You want to solve a problem.

Yeah, for sure.

Were you ever motivated by money itself or how did that, you know, that check change your life?

Yeah. I'm going to be really honest with you. Like, I'm super competitive. I like to win. But none of us set out to create a blockbuster drug. We set out to change the conversation about women and sex forever. That's what, you know, if you don't feel it at your core. The days when you get punched straight in the face, you run straight into the brick wall. You will give up if you're not doing it for that reason. And so the money was this sort of after effect. And I think it took me. It really has been very difficult even to this day for me to process because people say, what did you do? And it's not like I wasn't excited. And, you know, you see a check with that many zeros and you're like, am I seeing that correctly? But the truth is just like between Slate and Sprout, I woke up the next day and I went to work because that's what I love to do.

Love it. Slate and Sprout, I noticed that. I'm curious. They both start with an S. Is there a reason why?

No, not really. Okay, interesting. No. Yeah.

So where does the pink branding come from? Ever since on social media, even though right now, pink everything, and I love it. Where does that go?

You know what it is? So I will say, like, it's very difficult to find even a childhood picture of me where I'm not in pink. But when I went on the path for Sprout, my pill was called the little pink pill. And when people would say that, they would say, oh, that's cute. The little pink pill. And what I knew in that is there was an implied weakness. It was trivial to them. And I thought, you know, like, in anything where we make a sign, assumptions in life, especially gender stereotypes, for example, you have two choices, right? You're either gonna let that, like, shake your confidence, or you're gonna, you're gonna push away from it. You're gonna show up in your black pantsuit, or if you're me, you're gonna dress in blazing hot pink, show up way from the audience, and say, guess what we're gonna talk about today? And so that was really the decision. I mean, pink for me was a shift from underestimated to unapologetic.

Wow. Love that. I sort of. I just want to go back in time. I know that you went to a college in Virginia. That is where I come from. And I want to ask you, you know, when you're in college studying, did you plan to start your company? Or was that. Because I know you talked about, you know, you had this business mind early on. Was that always something you wanted to do as you went through, you know, your childhood, or when did that sprout up?

I like it. You know what's funny is I've always loved. I've loved business in the sense of what makes them great. And I'm fortunate that I had a professor who, like, knew I had this curiosity about what made businesses tick. And it's really like she saw it and she forced me into special projects, which I probably didn't appreciate at the time, what she was masterminding. And she would make me do all of this research on businesses. And through that, that's really why I decided I'm going to work for Fortune's most admired. But I don't think I was clear at that point that I was going to run it, even though I have two big brothers that will tell you that through my whole childhood, every game I designed, I was the CEO of.

Love that growing up. I know that you moved a lot.

I did.

Talk to me about that. How did that play a significant role in your life?

Yeah, well, so I'm from upstate New York originally, Rochester, New York. And my dad comes home one day and he says, hey, do you want to go to Fiji? And I had never even heard of Fiji. I, like, went to the globe in our family room and twirled it around. It was the other side of the world. And I thought, adventurous at heart, I said, yeah, I want to go to Fiji. He goes, great, because we're moving there. That's such a natural transition for a middle class kid in Rochester, New York. But my dad is an adventurer. And in that sense, even though at the time I think I probably like any kid who's being uprooted Every year. I moved every year from the fourth grade through my senior year of high school. I probably was a little reserved about it, but here was the gift. The gift was I got really comfortable being uncomfortable because you are not going to be popular when you walk into school the first day is the weird new kid. And that has served me so well in entrepreneurship because you have to be confident, if you will. Standing in a discomfort, if you're going to try something new, you're going to do something that no one's ever done, you better be pretty comfortable with that discomfort and everybody poke it at you a little bit.

Yeah. So what made you go to Raleigh, North Carolina?

Yeah. So I picked it. I totally picked it. I had no connection to this place. But I decided, you know, I wanted to build. Obviously I was building pharmaceutical healthcare companies. I wanted a base of talent. And I thought I'd ended up in the Philly area. And my mom's from the Deep south, my dad's a New Yorker. And I was like, I'm going the wrong direction. I need to go that direction. And I really came to Raleigh thinking, oh, I can recruit anybody to move here because it's such a great place to live. And the pleasant surprise to me is the talent is here. Spades because of NC State and UNC and Duke and there's such a great infrastructure here of talent. It's been such a great place to build businesses. Raleigh's a little bit of a secret. People don't realize that it's number two in the country for exits at a 3 to 10x multiple. So we beat the Valley in that regard. Yeah, yeah. Just nobody's talking about it.

Yeah, That's a little hidden jit. I used to go to Raleigh a lot for it's. I played hockey growing up for 10 years. Oh, yeah. I went to Raleigh probably every other month growing up. So I got very cool.

It's a great place.

I want to talk about just building team culture. I know that when you guys got acquired, it was. You had like 34 employees, is that correct?

I did, yeah.

How do you look at building team culture and hiring and just finding talent, especially in what you do.

Oh, I'll tell you what. It's really. So I love a book. I'll tell all of your folks, all of your audience. I love Purple Cow. If you haven't read it, it's actually a marketing book. But to me, it said a lot about how you build businesses. You know, how do you in essence, stand out in a sea of sameness and I think when I'm interviewing people, that's really what I'm looking for. They're abundantly qualified. Right. They're sitting across from me. But it's that it factor. It's that difference of how they show up and make choices every day. So I say there's six choices you have to make to come work for me. And here's what they are. You got to choose to be an owner. Ownership is a mindset. It's not just literal skin in the game or equity. It is how you show up in my mind. In your life. Yeah. Choose to be bold. Fortune favors the bold. We all know that quote. You got to choose to be quirky. That's a weird choice. What do I mean by that? It means, man, if you're in an environment in which you're not celebrated for your individuality, leave. Because those environments will not be the most successful environments. You gotta choose to be learning every single day. Casey is like the quintessential. He's the poster child for that. And that's so important. I haven't met a single successful person who isn't steeped in curiosity. And I think my final two are. We're very familiar. You choose to be family and you choose to be appreciative. You just. That's life. Right? You make a choice every morning when you wake up how you're gonna go through this world. And I would say you're so much better off going through with an attitude of gratitude. I love that I'm looking for those things. When I hire people, I hire against it, I fire against it, I incentivize against it. Like that's the thing. If you're building a culture, every single decision you make has to ladder up to who you really want to be.

Yep, Love that. Just nowadays, especially during quarantine, where do you spend your time now with everything happening and you know, I had the COO of shop and then they're talking about having remote workers for the rest of the year. Just how adapted during this time. And where do you spend your time on a day to day?

Yeah, so I spend my time like this, interacting with people. And I'll tell you the. I can't. I have to say this like it's a shame that I wasn't doing this before COVID with my team. Like we would talk, we text, we do everything. But there's something about getting on a video call that now is enduring. Like we'll never lose this discipline. And because we've really appreciated during this. I mean I hope I always spend my time in the trenches because that's the only place you learn. If you sit disconnected from everything, you know, especially as a leader, as a CEO, you're not going to know where your business is going. I love to sit on our phone calls. If people like customer service call in, I laugh because, you know, my incredible team will say, Cindy, like, get off. Like, you're not as good at this as we are eventually. But, like, my days are spent with my people. And, you know, for everybody out there who either looks at I, you know, looks at businesses or anything else, you'll see a lot of great ideas in your life. Ideas are kind of a dime a dozen, but great people are who execute those ideas. That's what you should always be choosing.

Love it. Speaking of great ideas, I know you launched Pink Ceiling.

I did.

Where you invest, an early age startup started by women.

Is that correct? Yeah, more guys doing great work for women. Okay, cool.

Yeah, talk to me about this because this is super fascinating to me. You know, eventually I want to be in the VC world and back company. So talk to me about this passion of yours and what it looks like in 2020.

Oh, I love it. Okay, so here's why I did it. So I sold my business. Like I told you, the sale didn't go the way I expected. Like, all of a sudden I was out. And I'm sitting there a little bit on the sidelines feeling sorry for myself. And I thought, come on, like, that's not who you are. Pick yourself up and go do the good work. And I knew, having lived that experience, that the best work I would do going forward is to advocate. Is to advocate for not only myself, but for each other, if you will. For women, I have walked a mile in those stilettos. Everybody laughed me out of the room when I went to raise money to get the female Viagra to market. And so I reach my hand back and I try to get women there faster than myself. And in the pink sand, putting my money where my mouth is, I got to know. It's my money. It's not a fund. And I really do roll my sleeves up alongside people who are doing incredibly disruptive first to market and often like catalysts in social conversation. So I'll give you an example. We have a technology. If I dip my finger in a drink, I touch a disc in 30 seconds, it tells me if there's a date rape drug in that drink.

Wow.

Those are the kind of things I want to see in this world. By the way, guys, Worked on that, but it's a great. And I can't. My niece is in college. I can't get it for them soon enough. You know, I've got the first flushable pregnancy test coming to market. It's really looking at things and I think underdogs that are overlooked by the system today because that's who I was and what fun it is to now be able to help them and say, no, no, no, don't step on that landmine. I stepped on that landmine. Go left.

Yeah. How much time does that, you know, occupy in your life? You know, part of these other companies and helping these other founders.

It's. It's, you know, a ton of my time because I don't do passive investing. So if somebody is, you know, looking for a check and hoping they're going to send me an email and say, hey, Cindy, can you connect me to so. And so I got plenty of friends who can do that for you. Like, I really want to help you launch. Like, I really. That all of the people that come in under the pink ceiling umbrella have access to my team who've helped me build two companies successfully. And we're really like, sleeves rolled up in the. In the trenches with you.

That is so cool.

And when I got Sprout back, it really kind of fell back in under the pink ceiling. So it's one of the companies under our umbrella.

Okay, very cool. So nowadays with Sprout, you still control that and own that?

I do, yeah. Yes. With shareholders. I have wonderful shareholders. Yes.

And I know. I saw an interview you raised. It was over $100 million. Correct.

From private individuals.

Private money. No. Venture capitalists.

Yeah.

Talk to me about that. Just raising capital. Your experience, what you learned.

Well, I can tell you, like, I don't look the part to show up and raise money for a pharmaceutical company for everybody who's looking. And so, you know, that gives you a certain by the numbers. Right. The odds were stacked against me. 2%. 2% of all venture capital goes to female founded businesses. Again, that math doesn't add up. So I wasn't going to get money from the traditional path, so I had to create a new path. And I thought to myself, okay, who do I need to get in the room with? If I could get in the room with this person, you know a little bit about this, Casey. If I could get in the room with this person, that will open the door to that person and that person.

And.

And it's really what I did. Like, I didn't have a rich Uncle I wasn't getting any check from anybody, so I had to go find this money. And I got into the room with a guy that had run healthcare banking for a big group he was investing on his own. When I got in that room, I said, will you introduce me to three of your friends? Will they introduce me to five of their friends? And so it went and I built this incredible national network. They're now a secret weapon. Because when I get excited about these pink ceiling companies, I show it to all of them. They won big on me and I hope that I can open the doors to people like that for others.

Very cool. What's your advice to young women starting businesses today? Because I think it's just you have such an important role and you're a leader and you really empower women. I share your profile with literally my mom and my aunt.

Thank you.

I have a four year old niece that, you know, when she's social. One day you're gonna be the first person that I. But what's your advice to, you know, young female founders? Because like you said, the odds are stacked against you. Venture capitalists, you know, invest in female founded companies.

Yep.

What's your advice there?

So I'll tell you, I have a really practical piece of advice which is if you're gonna walk in the room and nobody who sits on the other side of the table is gonna relate to what you are selling, ask them to have somebody in the room who relates. We forget that that's also our right. When you're getting an investor, you're choosing to. We make that mistake often as founders, we need the cash so bad. But you know, you're going to get into a partnership with these people. And I think that's really, it sounds so simple, but we forget to do that and I'll flip the tables on me. So if somebody was coming to me with the next best invention in hockey, I'm not a hockey player, I would be like, I don't know, probably not interested. Right. Because I don't really understand. But if somebody came to me said, cindy, I have an invention in hockey, it's going to change the game. Can you get people in the room who played hockey? And I did. And Casey was sitting next to me and he was going, oh my God, suddenly I'd be reaching for my checkbook.

Yeah.

So I think it's really, that's a very like fundamental in terms of raising money. I think the other piece of it is perfect. Your sense of humor. Give people room to correct. Right. Like people Aren't intentionally. Just as an example I just gave you. I wouldn't be intentionally biased against a hockey invention. I just don't understand it. So give that room for people to be able to come your direction.

Love it. When did you start going hard on social media? Because I know you have incredible brand. Talk to me about this new side of your life.

I'm so behind Casey. I sold my company for a billion dollars. Everybody said come speak on my stage. What is your handle? And I was like I've just been building companies for 10 years. I haven't done any of that work. So do as I say, not as I do. It's a fun piece I think today of building a company and a brand. We really do buy from people. So now I'm playing a little bit of catch up. So thank you so much for introducing me to your audience.

Absolutely. No, you've done such an incredible job. Anything I see pink.

I think that's awesome. Thank you.

I think it's so cool. So just taking a step back, like during the 10 years of building your company there was no social media like you were heads down building these businesses.

Totally.

I want to ask you. Right. Because I'm not in the pharmaceutical business.

Yeah.

Honestly have a lot of people personally that I know that have been in that business. What is the first step to starting a company in the pharmaceutical business? Because it's something that unless you know, you don't know.

I'll tell you what, go raise a lot of money, spend it. It's really very capital intensive. You know, if you think about drug development like we may have 18 years before something comes into the market. I haven't really been in that game per se. Like even when I got the product, it's called Addi the sprouts product. It was already had been developed and had gone down that path with a German company. And I went and got that science from them and completed it. But you've really got to. You probably are going to have to have the funding to be able to see it all the way through. And I think it's a design of what has commercial viability. It's really not unlike any other category. Right. Am I really solving a problem and is that problem something that only experience or is it something that when I go out and talk to others about, everybody's nodding their head. That's sometimes, you know, I obviously have the fortune of seeing a lot of pitches but people will come in and they'll be solving a problem and I'm like yeah, but Only you think it's a problem. You have to be very objective in that. Right. So you've got to figure out that you're meeting an unmet need.

Love that. When it comes to, you know, your future, just how you look at business, what would you say is the top three things you've learned from your journey so far?

Oh, that's just so good. Okay. Never accept unwritten rules that are holding progress back. Be completely unapologetic in your mission and embrace the workhorse to become the unicorn.

Wow.

I have a fourth. The happy ending is up to you. And, you know, my line of work, so it's really very important. I mean, that's true. It's ultimately up to you. Can we talk a little bit about the unicorn workforce? Because I think that's so fundamental. You know, I feel like I was an entrepreneur, not that I'm dating myself, but before there was even the Shark Tank era of, you know, the sexiness, if you will, to entrepreneurship. And we sometimes today, I think that we think that if we get the check, we've arrived. Funding becomes the destination. Funding is just the beginning. Like, that actually strikes a little bit of terror when you get your first check from an investor, because you got to pay them back, and you got to pay them back plus something right, if you do your job well. So I think that we've glorified this unicorn status, declaring our greatness before we actually execute. You just got to put your head down and do the hard work. That's the only way you get there. Day by day, consistently.

Yep. What does your daily routine look like?

I am. I'm gonna say the thing that you're not supposed to say. I get up. I'm immediately on my phone. Like, I, you know, eyes closed, still reaching for my phone. And I think a lot of people would say, don't do that. Give yourself time to think. I have a different point of view. Social media, for me, is a reminder of all the joy in my life, like, all the colorful characters that I feel so fortunate to know. And I think that starts my day, like, on really the right tone. And then I am immediately into calls and meetings and everything else the whole day, often with my dog sitting on my lap as my co pilot through the day. But I love that piece of it, like, the interaction of it all and staying so close to it. I spend much less time behind my screen just typing and much more talking face to face.

Love it. When you do, like, public speaking, you know, gigs and speaking in front of audiences. What do you Usually touch on. And where do you try to deliver a key point? And just talk to me about that, because I know you speak all over the country.

Yeah, well, a lot of them are just lessons learned. I mean, it's exactly what I just talked to you. Dissecting. You know, how do you challenge an idea if it doesn't make any sense? Like, what is the path to do that? You know, how do you unapologetically go about it? What does that mean? And I love to talk, in particular about culture. I told you about those six choices. I think that's so fundamental to the businesses that I see that are outstanding versus the businesses that are. Okay. Culture. You know, the businesses with the most incredible cultures will be the ones that find their way through the other side of this crisis.

Yep.

Right. Covid is the mother of creativity.

Yep. Hey, very. What would you say you've done during this crisis that you will, you know, moving forward?

You know what? It's funny. It was a conversation with Dan, actually, one of our mutual friends, and Dan was talking about his discipline, you know, every day of reaching out to five people. And I think that I'll confess, like, in the everyday, you know, like, I'm so busy. Oh, my gosh, I got to get down this call. I got to get to this meeting, whatever it is. You can excuse people who you hold dear. Very dear. Right. But you don't always reach out to. Since we had that conversation, every day I've woken up and reached out to five people. And I got to tell you, there are people that I might not have talked to in the last two years. Even though if we ran into each other at a conference, it would be like no time had passed. But now all of a sudden, we're like, hey, why aren't we collaborating on this? Why aren't we doing this together? So it's been really such a good piece of. I took that nugget from him, and I've applied it.

Very cool. I want to just kind of go back in time when it comes to college. What was your college experience?

So it was a little bit like, I don't know, kind of nerdish. I went to. So here's why I say that I went to a really small school because I ended up. I told you, I moved every year from the fourth grade through my senior of high school. When I got there, I was in Fairfax, Virginia. That was my senior of high school. And my criteria was I refused to move again. So I limited. Like, the only schools I looked at were in the D.C. area. And I ended up going to a really small school. And I was so bound. I am competitive. I said this, that I was gonna get out of school in three years. That was my goal. And I did it. I had two things. So one thing is my parents hadn't saved enough money to pay for all of my college, but they had saved some. So I went to them and I said, if I get a scholarship, will you still let me have the money? And I don't think they let me have all of it, but we made an agreement. I got a scholarship. So I worked for that. My senior year, I got that. And I can remember having my mom drive me to Charles Schwab to invest when I was first in college. So that was one, and the other was three years. And I said, I have two big brothers. And I told my big brother, oh, my gosh, I'm going to make it. Like, I'm going to get out in three years. And he called me and he said, you're an idiot. I said, what do you mean? And he's like, all the rest of us are trying to take five years. What are you doing? And I just. I've always been, like, racing, I think, a little bit. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe that's a bad thing. But I set these kind of goals to compete against my own personal best.

Very cool.

How.

How has just with all the success you've had, your relationships with your brothers and just your family. Because I have two older brothers as well, and I'm the youngest of three. So talk to me about, oh, I love it in your life, and how those have evolved over time.

They're huge. I mean, I'm so connected to my family because we moved, you know, having moved our whole lives, like. Like it or not, we had to be friends when we got to the new place. Cause we had no friends. So, my brothers, I will tell you, when I first started Slate and, you know, had this idea, like, I wanted to go out and try for myself, and I had no rich uncle. I did go to my big brothers who had little kids. They didn't really have, like, money on this, waiting on the side to write to their little sister. But God bless them, they both did. They both gave me a little bit. And so now I like to walk into the room and say, aren't you lucky I'm your little sister? Because I made them both a little bit of money. And they both. They both work with me today. So my brother works inside of Sprout. He's Instrumental to its success. So we're very tight knit.

So awesome.

Very tight knit. My parents are so funny because they are. They're perfect, right? If I call them and I say, oh my gosh, you know, I'm on this podcast or you need to listen to this, they're like, okay, yeah, like they're not impressed by anything, which is very good.

Yeah, that's awesome.

There's like, yeah, yeah, okay, whatever. Good for you.

That's awesome. I have two more questions before we wrap up. And yeah, I just love. I really have the most amazing energy right now. You give me so much positivity and energy. But I want to ask just regarding mentorship, did you have any key mentors in your life when you were building your business? Because this is something that to build a billion dollar company, it's not easy, right? Not many people do it. So how did you go about the process of learning from others? And did you have any key mentors in your life?

Can I tell you honestly? No. And I don't mean that I didn't learn from incredible people, but like our idea of mentorship, right? When I got into this industry, it's very male dominated. Very few women run healthcare companies today. And so if I looked up, really nobody looked like me. There wasn't a natural person who was going to be my sponsor. And so that again, I think these things that you think are your, you know, curses in some way become your blessings. Because what it did is it forced me to look to my left and my right. And I feel like every day I meet somebody new who's going to mentor me. Right? I learn from everybody around me and that has. So I feel like I have perpetually had mentors, but not in the traditional sense. And I would say to all of your audience, don't think of it. Don't limit yourself to think of it that way. Everyone sitting next to you can teach you something if you're open to listening to it. So I love to think, who am I going to meet tomorrow that I'm going to learn from?

I love that last question. And it's something to just touch on what I just talked about. If someone wants to build a billion dollar company, where do they start?

Go, go. You will not ever have all the answers. So I've learned along the way this really simple motto. And I want everybody to write it down. Success does not come from having all the answers. It comes from having the courage. Just start.

Love that.

Just start. You know, the thing that you want to get done in this world start on that path. I would tell you for you know, your audience who's younger, one of the decisions I would say to make, not the decision that I did make, but now in hindsight that I see, don't choose where you want to go work. Choose who you want to go work with. Pick people, always the people who will teach you, who you can surround yourself by that will make all the difference in your complete trajectory and in you finding your real passion.

I love that. Well, Cindy, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on today. Your story is amazing and I just love your energy. Where's place that people can stay up to date with everything you have on going on and where's the best place for them to follow?

Oh, I hope you'll follow me. IndyPinkCEO. It's my handle across all the social channels. And you can find us@thepinkceiling.com where if you got a great idea, you can come pitch us.

Love it. Well, Cindy, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Casey.

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