Yahoo Finance Career Clinic: Tania Boler of Elvie on how to start a women's health tech brand
Tania Boler started Elvie, a brand dedicated to improving women’s health through smart tech, back in 2013. After a PHD in HIV/AIDS prevention, she had worked for various NGOs and the united nations and was heavily involved in policy and research before becoming frustrated with the pace of change. She was eager to create something specifically for women, angered by the lack of innovation in female health products for decades.
Elvie, which so far has produced both a cult trainer for the pelvic floor and a breast pump, is now one of Europe’s fastest growing companies and is beloved by women across the globe.
Here, she tells us just what it takes to launch and run a successful women’s health tech brand.
Be prepared to break the taboo…
For some reason, there is a real stigma about female health products. It is something you really have to battle in this industry, even just to raise awareness and discussions about these issues, even when it comes to naming products! You can't just launch innovation and expect people to adopt it because people are not talking about the issue. So, you have to also change social attitudes - launch new technology and work with de-stigmatising women's health issues.
Shift it into a positive sphere…
We don't market a traditional health product in the way that women will be thinking I have a health problem and I need to fix it immediately. That puts in a negative space. Where's your pelvic floor muscle? It is like any other muscle, like your abs! But it doesn't have to have negative connotations around that. So, we were committed to thinking - how can we put it in a positive place for women? It is all about trying to get women to first of all, embrace womanhood and secondly, actually enjoy it!
Always do your research…
Find out as much as possible and be very targeted: know what product and what problem it is you want to solve. Entrepreneurs don’t just come up with an idea, they look for problems to give their attention to. Women’s health is a particularly exciting field because it has for so long been neglected and underserved. That may seem negative, but from an innovation point of view, it's always an opportunity.
Look out for female investors…
The venture capitalist funds are generally led by men. A very small amount of money going to female founders. Investors tend to want to invest in things that they understand. Obviously, men are not going to be the first understand intimate women's health issues, but also know money, even within medical research is scarce for this. Only 4% of all medical research is focused on women's health. So even within the scientific community, there's a dearth of money and interest in women's health.
Back when I started Elvie there were only a couple of other female entrepreneurs but now there are so many more – it is now a recognisable industry; FemTech. I think that the key thing is it's being led by women and we're not only getting more female entrepreneurs in this space, we're getting more and more female investors and this might help see a huge change.
Surround yourself with the right people…
People often think they might not have the right skills, particularly women when it comes to tech. My advice would be not to worry about that. I never worked in tech before, I never worked in the business side. But I think that actually can make you a more humble and better founder or entrepreneur. Because ultimately, being an entrepreneur is building a great team. Because I had so little skills in what was needed it meant I was quite humble about trying to bring in the best people and then letting them lead in their areas.
Have a strong sense of purpose…
As a founder entrepreneur, you have to really be passionate about what you do. There will always be really tough times and you need to just keep going through it. The amount we got rejected at the beginning, by funders, by retailers, everybody said it was never going to work out! Throughout it all, to get through that, we just made sure we listened to our users. We talked to enough women to know that this was a real problem, and that this could potentially help them. You have to develop a thick skin and just keep focusing on your goal.
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