S2EP2: What Would Jack Do? with Denielle Finkelstein & Thyme Sullivan

This is The Capital Flex. I'm Naseem Sayani. This show codifies the capital playbook because no founder should have to learn the hard way. We talk about what really happens behind closed doors, the bias, the breakthroughs, and the things no one says out loud. If you've ever walked into a room and felt the system wasn't built for you, you're in the right place. Hello and welcome to The Capital Flex. My guests today are Danielle and Time, the Co-founders of Unicorn, a period products company led by a simple truth: wherever there is toilet paper, there should be period products. For Danielle and Tyne, Unicorn is more than a company, it's a movement creating generational change and reshaping how the world designs spaces for women, one bathroom stall at a time. Their work has transformed period care from an overlooked perk into essential building infrastructure, improving employee experience, productivity and dignity at scale. Danielle and Time are recognized thought leaders in workplace wellness, facilities innovation, and women's health. Their design-forward stainless steel dispensers stocked with organic tampons and pads are now standard across some of the world's most influential organizations, including JPMorgan Chase, American Express, PepsiCo, Toyota, Blackstone, IBM, MassMutual, JLL, and more. It's brilliant. We all met just a few months ago at Women's Health Innovation Summit where we did a fantastic panel together and became fast friends in the moment. I love everything about who these women are and what they have built, and I'm thrilled to have them here today. Thank you so much for joining me.

Oh my God, we are so beyond excited.

I'm so excited. So if you could, for everyone listening, please introduce yourselves a little bit more and tell them just a little bit more about your company.

So Danielle Finkelstein, and yes, I can't believe that we only met 4 months ago and feel like we definitely have known you for a very long time. So it's the power of women and when women get to come together and also badass women.

So that's always— Well, yeah, we find each other.

You gravitate to, yes, you gravitate towards them. But I am co-founder, co-CEO, and the story behind us is Sam and I are cousins. And the big story is we hadn't seen each other in 30 years. We had both spent very long, very successful roles in corporate America. And 8 years ago, I walked out the height of my career, and I reached out to Thyme.

Yeah, Thyme Sullivan, co-founder, co-CEO, and it's really been quite an incredible journey that the stars aligned for us because I had actually been laid off from my job at Nestlé and was taking some time to try to figure out what I wanted to do. It was period products. After spending 27 years in grocery stores with Coke and Pepsi and Nestlé, it was the one product that seemed to have no transparency. And as mothers of daughters, I thought, why not try to make something better? And really what's evolved over this past 8 years is it's not just about making better products, it's about making them accessible to everyone. And the journey that we've been on, it just really resonated when we met you because, you know, women's health at the forefront and the challenges that we felt and experienced building a business and fundraising and all the things that have happened along the way. We're really excited to share our story and, and to talk more about it.

Yeah, it's kind of wild that our experiences that we want to believe shouldn't be surprising and crazy are when we talk about them out loud. It kind of still blows my mind that we can stop a room in its tracks when we, when we do say everything out loud. And so that was part of why this podcast for me was so essential is that these stories have to start to break through in bigger ways. And so the mission, as you know, is to, is to say everything out loud and to tell all the stories and and really to leave behind the learnings and the insights, uh, so that every other founder who listens has a toolkit of sorts and a way to approach and to be prepared and to know that so many of the rooms they walk into are simply not designed for them, ready for them, wanting to accept them, right? In the way that we hope that they could. And so hopefully there's a lot to be learned from all of the conversations that, that are coming on the pod. Uh, and so it's, it's been a lot of fun. To have really smart women come on and just drop the mic over and over again on so much of the crazy.

We applaud you for doing that because I think we need more of this space, more of the truth, more of the mic drops so that women can learn because you are absolutely right. The rooms are not made for us. So, we are, what we are now finding is that we're creating our own rooms, we're creating our own networks, we're, you know, finding the allies and the support where we can, but letting women know that like, here's, use this story, take this advice, and how can they make the change in, um, in their trajectory.

Yeah, absolutely.

No, thank you.

Absolutely. So to start us off, if you could, gosh, characterize your fundraising experience in 3 words, what 3 words?

Actually, I have it. The summer, the summer of unlove.

That's exactly what our first one was.

That's how we summarize it. That would be how we would summarize it in— soul crushing.

It really was the most rejection we had ever faced in our entire lives.

Yep. So as we sort of shared, like, Thyme and I came from major executive backgrounds. We had like, we were like corporate, corporate, corporate executives. So we're talking Coke, Pepsi, Nestlé. I was Ann Taylor, Coach, Kate Spade, and last as chief merchant at Talbot. So we're walking in like, we've got this great brand, we've got this pedigree, like we're good. And at this time, 7 and a half years ago, people were raising— this was in the heyday of consumer packaged goods. Like, people were raising millions and millions and millions of dollars, and they were getting these enormous checks. And so we're like, okay, there's something here. Like, and we know we've got something. So we set out for this summer. We're like, okay, we're gonna raise this money. Here we are, you know, set out. And we started in, it was May of 2019 through the entire summer, met with In person, 50 meetings.

Oh, right. Because this was pre-COVID, everything was fine. Pre-2021. I mean, we were, everything was good. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. So total summer, like everything, we're like, okay, we spend the summer, probably 100 meetings in total. And just, we're constantly like sending emails out. We're like everything we can. Every meeting we walked into, it was like the rec, the needle across the record. We'd sit across one from 25-year-old, I'm going to use the word boys. They'd never run a business, they'd never been, you know, operators. They didn't understand the insides. They were coming from, you know, Harvard Business School, Stanford, Penn, wherever they were, and they all looked the same. Here we were, two old ladies coming in to talk about tampons and pads and talking about our daughters, and it just, it like, it just, it just fell so flat. So we joke that there's, here's your other three words, there's no fun in fundraising. But we walked through that entire summer not raising $1.

Oh gosh. 50 meetings later, not a single, oh, 100 meetings later, not a single dollar.

Not a single dollar. And so Thyme and I sat back and definitely deflated, definitely like lost confidence, but we were like, something's not right. We've gotta reflect on this. Like what, what did we not do right?

What were some of the reasons? What was the feedback you were getting?

Oh, there's already other period. Product companies out there. Oh, you know what? My, my wife, she thinks you're a hot mess if like, if you don't, if you don't carry your, you know, there were just comments that were just, it just was like, it was a very strange.

What's your moat? What's your differentiator? There's already like, it was, is essentially there's, there's already period products. We don't need more.

We don't need more.

Oh yes.

So, and we had product in market at this point. This wasn't an idea. We were watching guys come in with ideas for dog food and raise $3 million. And I was like, we actually had, oh, and there's, there's a lot of dog food out there, yet we had these, like, uh, you know, this great pedigree and a lot of differentiators yet, and a product in market.

And, and this at the time you had the product in the bathroom stalls already? Was it the—

no.

Okay.

So we started our business as a retail business. So actually, just to share is we started our business as a retail business. So we were direct-to-consumer Amazon and then went to retail. And so we were just at this point of like, we were really exploring the retail side. And so when this started, so we made this decision, Thyme and I, like in our like sad moment, what we used to call free work is we would work in the Wegmans near us. And we would, that's where we would go and work.

In the food court.

In the food court. And we'd go and sit and we're like, listen, we're gonna give ourselves, we've got this. Like we're gonna give ourselves one more kick down the can, kick kick the can down the road and we're gonna figure this out. And two things happened. One was I'm Amazing. She wears a tampon suit and she would wear this. We needed free PR. And so there was one, one piece there. We're like, okay, let's find a race. She did a race. She ran the Reebok 10K in this tampon suit. Oh my goodness. Like, this was an unbelievable moment. It was one of those moments that was like, oh yeah, like you gotta do something different. And what we realized, I think what we took away from, from really from, you know, before when we were sitting like sad, like, what are we going to do? We realized a couple of things. Number one, we weren't with the right people. We were not talking to people that were going to understand us. We were not in the right rooms. We weren't talking to the right people. And so we really had to shift our minds of who we were going to put ourselves around. So that was a big part. And the other part was we had to think about not going VC. And we didn't know the difference. And so the big part is, and I think this was the, in that heyday, it was all VC. We didn't know about angel. We didn't know the different ways to go raise money. And so this really came to us is that we had to start thinking differently about how do you actually bring capital into your business and how do you fund it? And so that was one of those moments sitting there. We're like, okay, Thyme's going to dress up in her tampon suit. We're going to do a couple, couple things like, because we don't have much money left, but we have some runway. And so she's doing this. And on the side, we started talking with other folks that were in our circle and did more of like this friends and family and started understanding more about angel and that. And so this was this parallel path that happened. Thyme ran the race. What that got us is the Wegmans buyer saw Thyme, saw this, got picked up on the news and on, on the radio.

It's all earned media. I mean, that gave you a ton of just free PR. Yeah.

The Wegmans buyer called Thyme and said, I need you in the store.

Yeah.

I love your story. I love what you ladies are doing. And so that happened on one side. And on the other side, we got a small loan from a local bank. And then we had some, at that point we had what brought in, we got in some, some small angel checks. And that really was the path. We recognized that we had to come in with folks that we, you know, we connected with.

Yeah. Well, and I would add onto that, Summer, two other things is every time we went to one of those venture meetings, we would run home and recap and try to like adjust to like bend to be what we thought they wanted us to be. So we were like all of a sudden twisting into something we weren't even like, we had this one venture, we were going really far down. They're like, well, we'll invest if you switch to incontinence. And we were like, okay. And it was, but it was also more like, wait a minute. This is not what we wanted to start. It's not what we wanted to do. And it became really clear that the more we tried to bend to be what they wanted, the more we were getting away from ourselves.

Further and further away from what you actually— your ethos.

And even from ourselves as personality, you know, the whole reason the tampon thing came along too is when we were like crying in our poke bowls at Wegmans, we were like, this isn't even fun. Like, this is terrible. Like, we might as well go back to our jobs. Like, I'll go get another job. Like, look at, like, we're essentially, I was in sales, like, I'll go sell something else. I don't care. But we decided that we had to bring fun back into it. And that's when we decided to buy the tampon costume, which had a lot of legs, by the way. It did end up in Time magazine.

Oh, that's amazing.

It had a lot of, which it was, it was not pleasant to run as a tampon, just so you know. But it was fun.

No, especially because it's probably really warm really fast.

Oh, it's like the, it's like the, you know, like those really, really cheap blankets that you can buy and it has that like the cheap, the synthetic insulate. Oh, yeah.

Oh, it was so bad.

Oh, it's awful.

Oh, it's flammable. It's terrible.

Oh gosh.

And that string was no joke.

Oh no.

It was amazing.

Oh God.

Yeah.

Oh goodness.

We'll have to put a picture in the notes so people can enjoy it.

Oh, it is incredible how much the huge lack of knowledge that exists on the other side of the table in these conversations and how they just assume there's enough tampon companies, there's enough pad companies. We don't need another one. I'll tell you one very quick story. When I was first launching my first fund and I was at, it was like Thanksgiving or something, and I was with family and they were all sitting outside eating and, and I was telling the table I was with about what I was doing. And someone across the table from me leaned in and was like, oh yeah, female founders and women's health and oh no, that's so interesting. And then leaned in a little bit more and said, well, Beyond tampons and pads, like, what are we talking about? And you, I mean, my wonderful, my wonderful husband was sitting next to me and he just started to laugh and he's like, I just want to see what she does right now because you have just lit a match and she's like, oh yeah, you've unleashed, you've unleashed.

It was an unleashing. Yeah. And our first round, what the first round we ended up getting. So we did some of that angel and then Thyme went to UMass Amherst. And so they have an impact fund. And so that was actually our largest checkup early on. We're sitting in the due diligence. And all, there's one woman and, and, um, and 3 men and an older gentleman says to us, you know, he goes, hey, listen, ladies, or sorry, girls, girls, as moms, do you think you can, you can actually run and do this business? And I mean, Thyme had to hold me back.

I was like, I thought she was going to scratch his face off.

We both ran billion-dollar businesses, like as moms, as girls, like it was, yeah, it was so demeaning and it was one of those moments that you're like, okay, we're gonna prove you wrong.

Oh, I'm just gonna jump across the table and remind you that your entire house wouldn't run unless the girl you married did every single thing because your clothes are ironed and there's food on your table and your children have clothes. Okay. Thank you.

Yep.

Yes.

But so that was a, that was a nice fun early one.

But I do think, you know, that leads to an interesting part is that We thought venture was the only option, and we've had so many different ways that we've able to raise capital. And if there's one thing that we could pass down, like, listen, like we didn't need to burn our hand on the stove 12 times. Like if we can keep another founder and encourage more people to bet on themselves, you know, that was probably the biggest thing is understanding that to stay away from venture as long as we could, we actually still have stayed away from it. And with angel investors, we've got grants, we've done a revenue-based funding. We've had some loans, um, and like zero interest loans. Like we've had some really interesting loans. There's, there's stuff out there with the SBA, with LISC, with a lot of organizations. And it's a matter of just talking to other founders. And, and I think Naseem Sayani, what's been great about meeting you too is because you come from the investor side, you have so much to share too, because not just the different options for raising capital, but how you see it. And I think that's a big lesson we had to learn is when you're talking to somebody, what are the questions that investors have and what do they care about as opposed to you Just pitching your product or your deck or yourself or whatever.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, I tell, I tell founders, especially early on, that if they haven't taken venture money yet, to really, really think about whether they need it and when they need it. Because once you get on that train, you're not gonna get off that train. Yeah. And investors, we're really nice people until we aren't. And so you, you really be noted. Thank you.

Thank you, Naseem Sayani.

Be really thoughtful about that, right? Like you just, You know, we always smile and be sweet and, and then something goes awry and all of a sudden, like, we get real pushy and you don't, you just don't wanna deal with that if you don't have to. If you can be revenue generating and keep growing and funding the business and you don't have to take outside capital, don't take it, right? It's, it's perfectly fine to not be a venture-backed business if you don't have to be. So it's a big decision to jump on that train and be ready for what comes with jumping on that train, right?

Well, and we, we look back and we actually say when we made the decision to pivot the business. So we made a decision 4 years ago to pivot from retail. We were in almost 3,000 retail doors. So, and everyone from the outside was like, oh, they're successful. Their product on shelf, like they're doing well. Like, this is, this is great. And the real big, the big pivot that we made this decision to do, and there was a big reason behind it. But we know that if we had taken venture, we doubt that they would've let us do it. And it allowed us to have the flexibility and that ownership and autonomy to make some of those decisions to make. I mean, this was, it was a major, major shift. We 100% pulled out of retail and went after this, this really that we call it, it's truly, it's like blue ocean because nobody was else was in the physical bathroom stall providing period products. So we were moving into a space that we're like, okay, we have an opportunity. And we were hearing it from our customers. We love your product. Do you have, do you have a dispenser? And so it got us really thinking about how do we do this? And it was a light bulb moment for us. And when that happened, we're like, oh shit, we gotta, that's actually where we gotta go.

It would've been extremely hard to pivot if you had venture money at the time because you had to, it would've been absolutely impossible. How long did that transition take? And did you end up with the window where you didn't have revenue at all, or did it ramp down and ramp up?

We pulled the year that we pulled out was the year we baited with, with unicorn. And so like we were still smart about how we did it. And so that actually we were able to still generate margins were lower because we were discounting down, but we were still able to generate the revenue. And we started to get our first, like really the first feel of, of unicorn and where that was going. And as soon as we started to see that, we were like, oh, we're going after something that this is really, yeah.

Did the fundraising conversations change when you were, after the pivot?

So we haven't raised money.

Okay.

Since we pivoted.

Okay.

We've done a couple of small, like some of our existing angel investors came back in with some smaller checks just to really help kind of boost this. But we've raised in total $4.5 million up to this point. 3 and almost $3.8 million was all to the retail business. So it's really been small up to this point. And so that is, that's something we have, that's again, we're, Yeah, we have not. We've not in this side.

Well, and I think another thing that we have learned and why we haven't, and listen, it's not easy, but people always looked at, you know, if you raise millions of dollars, it's this big win. Like a lot of responsibility comes with money. A lot of dilution comes with money. And I think like now that we've been in this long enough, we know that revenue is capital and the more revenue we can drive, the higher valuation we can expect. And it is in our best interests and all the people that have believed us along the way to drive as much revenue as we can until we raise again. And that was a hard lesson because we actually did think in the beginning, like, we raised $1 million, like we just won the lottery. I'm like, no, you didn't. You took on responsibility. You like, right. And you can't blow it and you've got to use it efficiently. And we've seen so many companies over the 8 years raise a bunch of money and implode that it's, you know, it's, it's watching the same car crash over and over and over again.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. Goodness. What other crazy gendered moments have you, have you had?

I'll tell you one that's, and I'm sure Danielle's got a million too, but one that came to mind immediately is Naseem, one thing that we really appreciated when we met you is not only do you remind us that we need to look at things from an investor perspective, not just from a founder perspective, but also in, in knowing who you're speaking to in the room. When we started pitching, we thought for sure we'd just be selling to all women all day, all day long. I would tell you that when we started bringing on men as allies and putting it in their perspective, especially men that have daughters, you know, the, the line is, and you know, I think Danielle's the one that said it first, is like, do you ever walk around with toilet paper? And there's a big story, but you know, behind it. But when you put that perspective out there to men, they go, oh my God, that would be ridiculous. We're like, well, that's exactly what's been happening with women all along. And they're like, sure. I just didn't think of it. Like, I'm not a jerk. I don't hate women. Like I didn't think, and I think like always continuing to look at things and knowing the room you're in and who you're speaking to and their perspective. Because if you just go in and tell guys that you want to put period products in every stall, they're like, why? Like, they're— we already have them, like, they're fine. And Danielle, maybe you can tell her, like, you're super— like, where that phrase originated from.

Well, where that phrase originated from— that phrase changed the trajectory of our business. So as we think about getting male allies and how important that is, and really having those folks who can understand and bring it to their level, I think that's the most important thing, is like, how do you—

and that's—

and Naseem, you really did— you, when, when saw on that panel with you, how do you bring things to their level? And this happened 4 years ago. So Thyme and I got invited to a cocktail party. We bank with JPMorgan Chase. We've been banking with them since our first dollar. And the reason we got invited to this cocktail party is because our banker fell in love with our story. She was that girl who didn't— she couldn't afford her period products when she was young and always carried that shame. And then she also has another story of she had an interview, she had a white suit on. Guess what happened? She got her period. She ended up never going into that interview. You because she was so embarrassed. So, you know, you have this sliding door moment of like, she's not, you know, she missed an opportunity. So she fell in love with our story, got us, got us invited to this cocktail party. Well, this cocktail party was bringing Jamie Dimon to the Boston area. So Jamie Dimon, global CEO of JPMorgan Chase, and he does his speech. All men in this room. I mean, they're really like, it was maybe 15, 15% women, if that. Everyone in their suits and Jamie's up giving a speech. and he is extremely personable and very approachable as well. And so he finished and I was like, Thyme, let's go. Like, we're in this room, we're here. Like, we gotta go, like, get one, get a picture, but like, we, we gotta go and get up to him. And our banker's on one side, Thyme's on the other. And Jamie, thank you so much. Like, we've been banking with you since our first dollar. I said, can I ask you a question? He's like, absolutely. I said, do you carry toilet paper around with you? And so it was like, yeah, I mean, the, the banker, our banker was literally like, I'm, I'm surprised, like, the hook didn't come in. Like, but he kind of like, his face was like, like, okay, like looking at me like, that's a strange question. But what it did is it allowed us to open the room with— open the conversation with him. Everyone else that's talking to him, nothing's memorable. They're all saying the same things. And so what we did know is that we've got to go into this space and we've got to— one, like, when you— as soon as you equate period products to toilet paper, especially with men, they're like, yeah, that's—

no, it changes the whole conversation.

It changes everything. And so it really allowed him to, you know, okay, engage in this conversation. And it was very quick conversation, but then he stopped me and he's like, listen, he goes like, I get it. He goes, I've got a wife, I've got daughters, and now I have granddaughters. He goes, let's figure out how to make this happen. And it was because of finding that moment. I mean, yes, it was one of those moments that like it truly changed everything for us and continue to thank him for it because he saw the vision, he saw what we were doing, and he saw that it actually, the bigger part is how it could impact his employees. And that was a really important part was That was, that was the win for him.

Right, right. It makes such a difference, right? There's two, there's two things in there. One is just taking the shot when you have the opportunity to take the shot. Like when, when would you—

Eminem. We got Eminem behind us playing all the time. One shot.

Yeah, exactly. You like, when will you be in a room again and have an opportunity to walk up and one, say hello, and two, just ask a question that could completely change the trajectory of your business. You may as well. If he doesn't get it, he doesn't get it, but at least you took the took a shot. And then two, it's like you, you are, you're able to then execute it and he gets it. And now you have someone who can help you move the business in a way that you couldn't have before. And that those moments are critical, right? And we don't, and women don't do that well and often enough. And it's, it's such a conditioning problem that we have to uncondition ourselves and deprogram these things out from how we think and how we move. Cause we forget, we forget that actually we can, we're fairly good at these things. We can do it. We just have to take the shot.

It is, it's taking the shot and it's realizing that, you know what, like you, we also where we are in our careers and we stepped away from these major things. Like this isn't a hobby, this isn't a nonprofit for us. Like this is a mission for us. We are doing this. We've made this decision for our family. So every opportunity we have, we really do our best to step into that opportunity and make the most of what it is because otherwise, like, you're just gonna miss, you're gonna miss some of those chances. And so it's not worth it.

Yeah. And then putting it in the context of the business and the bottom line for the business always completely changes the conversation because they, they don't care about the pain. They don't care about all the, all the drama. It just doesn't matter. But if, if it matters to the bottom line, they'll have that conversation every single time.

Well, that was another thing.

Yeah.

And in the beginning we just went out and talked about period poverty and the social impact, and people did not care. They did not care. But it's interesting. So now fast forward, now we've been putting these in every stall and we have a lot of data and measurable impact. And, you know, it's so interesting now because investors see the recurring revenue model and zero churn and, and companies see the ROI. And we have survey data that women are saying that this is unbelievably amazing and why didn't anybody think of it? And, you know, and there's a lot of efficiencies with sustainability and waste reduction. It's a win all the way around, but it totally kind of pulled all that in. And you've said that, like you said, put your numbers out. Like people care about the numbers. They really, like you could have all your empathy, but it's good.

Yeah, put your empathy in the appendix.

In the appendix.

Yes.

Oh my God. It's actually so true. But I wish, like we have learned so much. We truly came out, we were like, Wait a minute, like we have to solve period poverty. And people were like, that's wonderful.

Charlie Brown's teacher. It's Charlie Brown's teacher. Like it really truly is.

Oh, there's one more. Yeah.

Yeah. And well, then you get asked the questions about, well, shouldn't this be a nonprofit? Why, why is it for profit?

Oh, don't even get us started. Oh, Dressy Draper, where are you? Investing in women is not charity.

So on that panel we were on, you told one fantastic story that stopped the room in their tracks. You have to share that one.

I will. I'm happy to share this. This is, listen, we have so many stories. We're here all week, but this is the one that really gets us, gets every time we've told this in public. And if it didn't happen to us, we wouldn't have even believed in it. It all goes back to, you've gotta know the room that you're in and you've gotta know what you're dealing with. And we knew that it was hard to fundraise as women. We anticipated that. We did not anticipate the deep underlying bias that still exists. And the story was that we had a company that owed us a significant amount of money for over a year. And this was just this past spring. And for the better part of a year, our head of sales had been reaching out to him. Danielle had been reaching out to their CFO, their CEO. I mean, absolutely emails, phone calls, everything went completely unanswered. And our CFO was like, hey, like, we're gonna have to write this off. It's almost, It was coming up on a year and I was like, no, I'm gonna send 'em to collections just outta spite. I will do it as a nighttime hobby and weekend. Like, I do not care. This is not okay. Like, I'm not down with it. And they like, I'm gonna figure this out. And at the same time, Danielle was meeting with another founder over coffee and was like, hey, my co-founder's like going, like ready to like go to collection town on this, this company. Have you ever dealt with it? And she said, yeah, weirdly enough, I dealt with this situation. And I set up a fake email from Jack at my company and sent it off after, and we got paid. And I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard. And Danielle came home and told me this story.

I was like, fine, we're hiring somebody. Yeah.

And I was like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But, um, it sounds dumb, but easier than figuring out the collections process. So what the hell? I'll give it a shot. So at 4:30 on a Friday, I set up an email and I send it from Jack Collins, who was, I'm like reincarnating a, an uncle of mine who was a lot. And I, I send this email out from Jack Collins. And again, this is a year with no communication whatsoever. And then within 10 minutes, I get an email back to Jack from the CEO saying, hey Jack, like, thanks for reaching out. Let me get with my team over the weekend and, uh, we'll get back to you. And I immediately, so it's like 4:30 now. It's like 4:45. I run downstairs. I say to my husband, I can't even believe this just happened. Like, what do I email this guy back? Like, because of course I want to be like, thank you, have a great weekend. Like, thanks. Like, what? And he was like, don't you dare. He's like, Jack does not email back at 5:00 on a Friday. It is beer o'clock. He is out. He is peace out. I was like, oh, I was like, okay. So I had to sit on my hands. I did not email back. And of course, first thing Monday, I'm like, do I email back? And he was like, absolutely not. Jack does not chase. Jack attracts. And I was like, mm. So I sit and I wait. I sit and I wait. And that afternoon we get an email back from the CEO saying, hey, Jack, thank you so much. Worked out a payment plan. They paid Jack. They paid us, which, yay, they paid us. But here's where it gets even more insulting. Within a week, there was a handwritten note in my mailbox addressed to Jack Collins from the CEO, thanking him. For being so understanding and like during that, their difficult time. And we keep this because we would never believe it if it didn't happen to us.

Oh my God. So not paid for a year and won't even communicate properly. And then Jack shows up, full payment. Well, first of all, you get a response in 10 minutes. Then you get a plan 3 days later over the weekend. Then you get paid. And then you get a handwritten thank you note. Jack gets promoted. This is what Jack— Oh, Jack got promoted.

Oh, absolutely.

No, but here's what's so crazy is like when you really dig it deep, women couldn't own a company in the United States of America until 1988. There are still people in powerful positions that don't remember women being able to own, run companies and own their own companies. And we knew kind of the, the surface bias, but this is really deep. And I would tell you, this story continues to have legs. It's probably, it's definitely the most viral post I've ever done on LinkedIn sharing this story. The amount of people that reposted it, shared it that I didn't even know. And we were just at a conference last week with the No Women, and a woman came up to me and she said, I want to thank you for the Jack story. I had the exact same problem and I have a male controller and I asked him to email the customer. He said, that's ridiculous. And he did it. She goes, and we got paid.

She's like, and we got paid.

I was like, This is for all you listening at home, this is a, like a true, true— it's wild.

And I would say I have a good handful of female fund manager friends who have a Roger at email and that's like their legal goes at email.

Roger versus Jack. Okay. Like, yeah. Okay.

No, there's a Roger at, and they, that's where any like legal, any finance, any of that go, goes to Roger because if it goes to her, it doesn't get a response or It does, just doesn't get solved.

You know, you know what? We've heard this.

We use Roger for it.

There were so many women. We told this story at an M&A conference and it was a line of women to speak to us afterwards who said, I had this terrible thing happen and I was so embarrassed because here I am, I'm an attorney, I'm a like huge, like whatever. They all have these big jobs and they're like, I can't believe that this bias still exists. And I was so embarrassed, like, but now I feel like I can share my story because it happens to all of us.

Everybody. Yeah.

Oh my God. What would Jack do, right? That's what we want on t-shirts. What would Jack do?

We, yes, we say it like people actually said, they're like, you need swag. Like we, like it is a constant. We need stickers. Like what would Jack do? Yep.

It is. No, but I've even like done that now. Like, so now like my chat knows Jack and I'm like, write this like Jack would. Like, yeah.

How would Jack write this sentence? Take out any fluff, any extra. No exclamation points. No, no little—

I'm so bad with that too. Oh, I'm so much with exclamation points.

Yeah, it's just the awareness. This is not like, like, you know, getting up on a big soapbox. This is just saying, hey, like, this is the reality that we're dealing with and everybody needs to know so that you can be prepared and you can react and, and hopefully, you know, our daughters won't need a Jack in the future.

But I think the big part is, is that, you know what, there are going to be moments that we've got to play the game. And so it's learning how to play the game. And I think that's really the most important thing. Like we take that away and like in the moment, we're like, how is this happening? And there actually have been other instances. I mean, I'm not going to give the details, but we just had something recently that also just happened. And so you have to, like, when you just keep seeing the same flags and you're like, something's not right, we've got to flag it. We've got to play the game. And it really, it sometimes is like a gut punch because you're like, I don't want to believe this, but you just, we're running a business and we've got to find the way through and find the path. And sometimes that's That's the way we have to go.

Yeah. Well, and the way I like to think about it also is that we are, I mean, women haven't been in venture for longer than about 10 or 15 years, right? It's, it's really been a boys' room for a long, long time. And so it's, it's not designed for us. It's, it's actually deliberately not designed for us. Right. And so we're walking in and we're pushing and we're trying to like move the, the wheels so that it does work for us.

And so it, it's going to be hard.

It is hard. Like it's, it's not as if it worked for a while and now it doesn't work. We actually are making it work. And so we are literally pushing rocks uphill. We are quite literally trailblazing and that's going to be hard. And so it's like, this is the work. And so we, we have to play the game we're in, not the game we want, but once we win and we have money and can sit at the top of the hill and drink lots of whiskey. Then we can talk, right? Then, then we can, then we will change the game and then it will be different, but we're, we're changing it right now. And so that's going to feel hard.

Yeah. But that's why these conversations are so important. You know, it is, it's just letting people know that like, yeah, sometimes these things are really crazy, but, but find the path, find the path and like listen to other folks. Folks, everyone go figure out who your Jack is. If you need a Jack, like create that email, like it costs you nothing. So just like, what are the things that you can, you know, you can do to, to be, to get it, to get it done, to get it done.

Yeah.

Get shit done.

Yeah. Any, well, I have two last questions. So closing thoughts for founders that are listening, like one or two big must-knows given your experience in life and as a founder that you want to leave with everyone listening?

Sure. I can tell you, like our, it goes back to like our original story. Like one of the reasons that we love Sarah Blakely and we live by this is that you can do serious things without taking yourself too seriously. We are still having fun and enjoying the ride and hopefully helping others along the way. But that's been a really important part for us.

And I would say on our, the other side is it's all about relationships. The world we're in, AI, everything we have, like we're still, yes, we're still behind computers, we're still doing those things, but The power that is happening still is like, it is instead of going so transactional, like build those relationships, create those networks. Like that is where the power still is. And like, don't let that go. Don't let that go away. We're continuing to see that just, that is really what's also really helping our business to get us to the, to the next level is it's relationships. We're in the business of humans, like every day, that's what we're, we're doing. So don't lose sight of that.

And women are especially good at it. It. So yes, they are lean into it big time. Yes.

Yep.

And what can everyone do to help you, to help your business? What's, what's the ask?

Oh, the big ask. I mean, it really is, if you're in a company that you don't have something, voice, like send the voice up, send the voice, ask for it, ask your facility teams, ask your HR team, send us a note. Every business, every, it's not even just business. Anywhere you are away from home, period products should be. Again, think about toilet paper. Everywhere there's toilet paper, there should be period products. And we know there will be period products. But that's really— we ask that we need— we need the groundswell of women behind this because who we talk to every single day is your building owners, it's your facility teams, it's your janitorial teams. But we need the women that are actually in the workforce that are out there to raise their voices and be like, why is this not—

you have a golf simulator, we don't have period products.

What?

Like, right.

Like, that's really where we're at.

And, you know, so you're, this isn't, this isn't an amenity. And I think that's the, we've got to remove that. This is not an amenity. This is actually part of the infrastructure. This is one of those basic needs to support our health. And that's really what we have to be thinking about this. This is the future of what work is going to be.

Yeah, there is. And so find us on LinkedIn. We're Unicorn in Every Stall. Instagram, we're Unicorn in Every Stall. Follow us on LinkedIn. We're also those founders that like, well, like if we can help, we will help in any way and connect. We do answer our messages and we were there and our website is everystyle.com.

Amazing. Thank you so much for joining me. This has been so fun and so many insights and so many learnings, and I just know everyone's gonna just eat it up and learn so much from both of you. I really, really appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So happy to know you.

Oh, it goes both ways. 100%. Thanks for listening to The Capital Flight. If today's episode hit home, share it with a founder you love and follow me on LinkedIn for more.