80% of women experience hormone imbalance. Roya Pakzad, Founder and CEO of Feminade, joins ChedHER to discuss what symptoms women should keep an eye out for when it comes to hormone imbalance, and how Feminade is creating a one-stop shop for women's hormone and reproductive health needs.

chedHER

How 'Feminade' is Becoming a One-Stop Shop for Women's Hormone and Reproductive Health Needs

joining us now is Roy APAC Sad founder and Ceo of Effeminate. Roy are really glad to have you on the show this morning. Can you just tell us a little bit more about effeminate and what has to offer First of all. Thank you so much for having me. Alicia. Yeah. Effeminate is reinventing health care for women in our initial area of focus is hormonal imbalance, which is impacting 80% of women in their reproductive ages. That's 60 million women in the US1.4 billion women around the world. And by giving women access to their hormone data. We want to help women get to the root cause of their symptoms and we do this through at home testing, telehealth personalized treatment plans. And this is an area that is grossly misdiagnosed and misunderstood and under researched by the health care industry. A bit of a fun fact. You actually create effeminate while while couch surfing. Can you tell us a little bit about how you made this a reality exactly. In 2019 when I was determined to build femine aid, I only had three months worth of savings in my account and I decided to pull the plug on my 9 to 5 job and fully dive into building femine aid and I bootstrapped effeminate And in 2020 actually when the pandemic hit and everybody was freaking out. Obviously I actually uh you know took advantage of my unemployment stimulus checks and invested those in effeminate. So that's how really I was able to bootstrap effeminate and then we launched our pilot in our beta in late 2020, early 2021 really didn't know what to expect. And after 2 to 3 months, women started our customers started emailing us and writing into us saying how feminine it has changed their lives and how something like this didn't exist before. They were shocked that something like this didn't exist before. So we're really happy to be uh, you know, spread heading this mission on the opposite side of that fun fact. Not so much of a fun fact. Roe V wade that was overturned about two weeks ago to the day to day, sending the country in a bit of a tailspin and a lot of women questioning what does this mean for them maybe being even more conscious of their, you know, reproductive rights or or just a reproductive health more broadly here. What are some of the gaps in the current state of women's health care that you were trying to solve? Absolutely. First and foremost, this was such a huge, huge setback for women's reproductive health. But however at effeminate, we believe that is a woman's universal right to make informed decisions about her body. And what we want to do at femine aid is provide women with their biological data as well as information and education so that they can make informed decisions for their body. 80% of women experience hormonal imbalance. That's a large number and I think a number larger than most would have thought what are some of the symptoms that women should keep an eye out for? I'm glad you asked Alicia. So heavy irregular cycles or any abnormalities in a woman's cycle is a sign of hormonal imbalance. And then you got infertility, pcos menopause, perimenopause, hair loss, brain fog, depression and uterine fibroids, which this month is uterine fibroid awareness month. So all of these are signs of a hormonal imbalance and it's something that Most of us, 80-90% of us deal with on the regular basis. You're you're a venture backed female founder. We're talking at the top of the show, you know, states that are, you know better for for women led businesses, you are kind of, you know, successful right now and then having a great run in a, in a really important field. What are your tips for for raising capital? Because access to capital for women owned businesses is often one of the biggest challenges. I truly believe that just as much as the investor is interviewing the founder to see if they want to invest in them. I believe every founder should also do their due diligence, uh, in research before they pick an investor and also do their thorough interview of the investor, a good investor could be the key to your long term success and a bad investor could also be detrimental to your business. So to any founder who's listening to this? It's not just getting capital from any investor. you want to get capital from the right investor will back their investment with the right resources. So that's the one of the tips that I would have to offer to founders. I really like that because I think, you know when you're at the beginning of this, you're just hoping anyone will invest in you that anyone will, will give you an opportunity. But that could prove long term to be more of a challenge. And so being picky, even at the beginning can be important. Seven Aid. What are the future plans here? The future at feminine is super exciting. Um, we are just starting with hormone data and hormonal imbalances. However, there's so many other vital biomarkers that we are looking into when it comes to a woman's health and her symptoms. And we imagine a future where women can have access to all of their vital biomarkers and the palm of their hand in an app and make informed decisions, knowing what's happening in their body at every single time and taking the right next steps to optimize their health. And that's what we're bringing to feminine. And the best way to keep in touch with us is to follow us on instagram at feminine inc as well as twitter at effeminate ink and our Tiktok is at effeminate. So yeah, thank you. And just really quickly before I let you go here, can you just talk about how easy it is to kind of access this carrot and it looks like I think we had on the screen there, a simple urine test that you can kind of mail in. Yes, it's super simple. With one click of a button, you order the kit. It is a dried urine test. You're just submitting four dried pieces of paper. You're not submitting a cup of urine. So just F. Y. I. And then after 2-3 weeks, you'll get your responses, you'll get your results and we'll put you in touch with one of our medical professionals to interpret the test results and provide you with a personalized treatment plan. I think that level of convenience amid the time of health care is so important and maybe gives more people a reason and more women a reason to go out there and really get in tune with their body and understand what's going on. Thank you so much Roy. I really appreciate your time. Royal Parks, our founder and Ceo of Feminine Aid.