Ep 68: No Drama, Just Periods: How Pinkie Empowers Young Girls Through Education and Comfortable Products

In this episode, we talk with Sana Clegg and Fiona Simmonds, the co-founders of Pinkie, a company that fills an unmet need by making organic period pads custom-sized for tweens and teens. Sana and Fiona share their personal experiences with traditional period products and the lack of options available for young girls. They discuss how Pinkie pads are designed to be comfortable and provide confidence for young girls navigating their periods.  SANA CLEGG is the co-founder of Pinkie, Inc., the only small-sized organic period pads designed to fit tweens, teens, and adults. Sana is a veteran marketing and public relations expert with over a decade of experience working with top luxury marketing and PR firms in the country, including Valentino and Ivanka Trump Jewelry. She is also the founder of the luxury children's sleepwear brand Sunny with an A. Sana also spent five years in investment banking and holds a degree from Georgia Tech. She is the mother of three daughters and one son and lives with her family in New York City.  FIONA SIMMONDS is the co-founder of Pinkie, Inc., the only puberty company which offers small-sized organic period pads designed to fit tweens and teens. Prior to founding Pinkie, Fiona spent over a decade in Investment Banking and Mergers & Acquisitions at Citigroup Global Markets and American Express. She also has executive management and business operations experience from her time at a Blackstone portfolio company. Fiona holds a BA from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania. She is the mother of one son and two daughters and lives with her family in New York City.   Listen to this Takin’ Care of Lady Business episode with insight into the mission and values of Pinkie and the work that Sana and Fiona are doing to empower young girls during a scary time in their life.   Here is what to expect on this week’s show: How Pinkie fills a need for young girls who are starting their periods at earlier ages by offering small-sized organic period pads for teens and tweens Why open communication, no egos involved, and work towards what's best for the company, which has been crucial to their success The importance of having a co-founder with complementary skills and personalities Using bootstrapping and being frugal and thoughtful in spending can build a business long-term How Pinkie has received investment from supportive investors who have an open mind and want to learn and understand the product and its mission, including men who were able to understand the product through financial analogies     Quotes: “I went to the drugstore and looked around and I thought, wait a minute, like nothing's changed from what my mom gave me decades ago.” - Fiona Simmonds “It's more just making sure when you partner with someone that they have all Yins to your Yangs and vice versa.” - Sana Clegg “You have men who invested… I know that other people I've talked to, or female founders, who had tampons, et cetera. [and], it was a very difficult conversation with men in the room. [The woman] had to move it away from the icky topical topic of a period and literally just talk about the financial like aspect of it and how much money they would make.” – Jennifer Justice  “[Explaining a female product], it's like that astronaut. [Sally Ride], one of the female astronauts who went to space. And they gave her, like, 100 tampons for like a four-day flight 100 tampons, and these are literally rocket scientists.” - Fiona Simmonds “I was flabbergasted, I was one of our first meetings, we went have this pretty bro-y office of VC investors, but the best of the whole thing. After we gave the whole speech, they were like, “so, why don't you just get your husbands to invest in this?’” - Sana Clegg   Pinkiepads.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pinkiepads TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pinkiepads Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Pinkie-Organic-Cotton-Topsheet-Tweens/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices