WBE Feature – Women’s Month & Stress Awareness: Women’s Health and Maternal Care

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] Lee Kantor here with Dr. Pamela Williamson. Another episode of Women In Motion, and this is going to be a good one. Dr. Pamela, how are things?

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:00:36] Things are fabulous over here. How about with you, Lee?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:39] I am doing well. I was so excited when I saw this group come into the queue for these shows. Women taking care of themselves is the theme this month and we got an interesting group today.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:00:52] We do. I am so excited because we have two women that are both crushing it in their industries. And I am excited to hear their stories and their journey, and I am sure that they are going to have lots of tips and conversations about how they take care of themselves. Because, as you know, as women, stress is a huge issue with us because we’re balancing everything. And just how do these women manage being so successful in their business life and their personal lives? It is truly a mystery to me, and we’re hoping to unravel that with these ladies.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:01:25] So, I am excited to talk with today, Jess Toolson from Mixhers and also Courtney Williams from Emagine Solutions Technology. Hello, ladies.

Courtney Williams: [00:01:37] Hello.

Jess Toolson: [00:01:40] Hello.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:01:40] Hi. So, I want to kick off with just learning about you. So, let’s talk about your journey, how did you start your business? And I’m going to start with Jess.

Jess Toolson: [00:01:51] Awesome. Hi everyone. I’m so happy to be here today. I am Jess Toolson. I’m based out of Utah. And I started my business, Mixhers, almost five years ago. In a few months, we’ll celebrate our fifth birthday. And my business was started because I was a woman in need of support with my hormone imbalance. I didn’t know years ago that that’s what I was struggling with. I was dealing with all sorts of symptoms when I was postpartum with my twins, and I had never dealt with in my life previously, such as hormonal acne, menstrual migraines, bloating, cramping, and all the debilitating symptoms that women don’t want to experience each and every month.

Jess Toolson: [00:02:32] So, I set out on a health journey which led me down all different paths. And finally, a friend gave me a formula that she had been mixing in her very own home. She was taking Chinese herbs and mixing them together and helping one woman at a time. This formula completely changed my life. And I approached her and said, this is something that we have to get into the hands of all women and have them know that there is a solution for PMS symptoms outside of some of the prescriptions and things out there that aren’t actually helping with hormone imbalance.

Jess Toolson: [00:03:06] So, we set off onto our journey starting our business. We launched in 2019, starting with that product that we now call Hertime, that is helping tens of thousands of women each and every month. And we now have 15 different products that we offer health support for women on everything from anxiety, insomnia, their greens product, their focus product. And we specialize in always being hormone friendly for women and it’s so fun.

Jess Toolson: [00:03:40] Obviously, I appreciate this conversation so much because there is a lot that comes along with running a business, and the stresses that can come up with that, and the pressure, and all the things. And so, I appreciate this conversation so much that we can kind of open up the topic of how to take care of ourselves amidst all of the pressures. And I lead a company of 35 women, and I hope to always be leading a business that is actually health-focused, not just saying that we are health-focused. So, that is a bit about Mixhers, and I’m so excited to learn more about everyone else on this podcast.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:04:21] Thanks. Courtney, how did you start your journey?

Courtney Williams: [00:04:26] So, I’m Courtney Williams. It’s so nice to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I started Emagine Solutions Technology out of a need actually. My sister had a really difficult pregnancy, and it was the first time that it opened up my eyes to the fact that pregnancy is not solely safe and that it can be a dangerous time in the health lifespan of a woman. And seeing her be bedridden for months as she was going through her high risk pregnancy, it was dangerous for her to get to her appointments.

Courtney Williams: [00:04:58] It made me think like there’s got to be a better way. There’s got to be technology that’s applied to pregnancy, that’s applied to other areas of the medical world. So, I teamed up with a team, actually, to develop a handheld ultrasound that could be used on cellphones and tablets to help people, like my sister, in a situation where, you know, she has the best access to the best medical care, but getting to her appointments is dicey. That was our first technology.

Courtney Williams: [00:05:24] Fast forward to the pandemic, I had myself a high risk pregnancy, and I ended up developing preeclampsia in the postpartum period. So, right as we were getting ready to launch our handheld ultrasound, we developed this, I found myself in a medical situation where I needed technology and I didn’t have access to it. So, in the middle of the pandemic, I was getting chest pain. It was five days after giving birth. I got chest pain. I had just terrible headache that wouldn’t go away. And I ended up getting this fluid line on my leg a couple days after coming home from the hospital. And I was like, this is not right. This is not normal. And my mom’s like, “Go to the hospital. Go to the hospital.” And it turned out I had preeclampsia postpartum period.

Courtney Williams: [00:06:09] And so, through that experience and being in the hospital and going through that, I realized we are not applying remote patient monitoring in a way that we are to maternal health as we are to cardiology and kidney care, all these other conditions that really affect men a lot more than women necessarily.

Courtney Williams: [00:06:30] And so, I ended up developing an app called The Journey Pregnancy. And that was the app that I needed. It’s a way for women that are in pregnancy to log and track their maternal health. And they can do this from their positive pregnancy test all the way through their postpartum recovery. And this is connected to their doctor so their doctor can see their health journey in real time. And this really fits the need of a lot can happen between appointments in maternal health, and so this provides that visibility that can be super critical and actually almost life saving for folks between appointments. So, that’s how I got my start based on going through, you know, personal and maternal health struggles in my family.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:07:14] No, thank you for that. Both of your industries are pretty stressful and it sounds like both of them at times have been pretty male dominant. And so, I’m curious, I just read an article a couple of days ago about imposter syndrome and just how stressful that can be. I’m just curious if either of you have experienced that and if you’d be willing to share what that was like for you and provide some tips on what you did to overcome it. And so, I’ll start with Courtney again.

Courtney Williams: [00:07:54] Sure. So, being in the health care industry and developing med tech products, and a medical device that we’ve gotten through FDA clearance, et cetera, a very, very male dominated industry in general. Even though we are part of the subset of digital health called Femtech – which is to say, I don’t love that term, but that’s sort of the industry term right now that’s being thrown around to refer to any medical technology that really applies to the health spectrum of females throughout their life, whether that’s pregnancy periods, anything to do with menopause and thereafter, and elder care for women – is a big, you know, $50 billion industry, but even though it is about women’s products and women’s needs and women’s health, it’s still really dominated by men.

Courtney Williams: [00:08:40] Being a startup in this space is also male dominated because we have to go through applying for funding, and looking for non-dilutive opportunities, and eventually looking for venture capital. We’ve all heard about the statistics of women going out and doing fundraising are definitely at a disadvantage compared to their male counterparts. And that’s particularly exacerbated for any women of color or folks that are in the LGBT community.

Courtney Williams: [00:09:06] I know how these statistics impact my business. I know that I need capital, obviously, to grow, especially being in a more capital intensive industry, software and medical device and med tech. And so, one of the ways that I’ve actually been able to address this is going for non-dilutive funding. So, funding my business is through grants. We’ve been really successful. So, I don’t have to deal with as much the VC – I don’t want to say challenges that a lot of women face in this field, but knowing that that can be a hurdle for folks, especially in my industry, I’ve decided I’m really going to focus on the non-dilutive route. So, we’ve been really successful getting grants from National Science Foundation, Department of Health and Human Services, Pharrell, Pharrell and his Black Ambition competition. We’ve been a winner in that.

Courtney Williams: [00:10:00] And so, I think that a lot of women when they go through a fundraise feel, this sense of imposter syndrome, like “I have a great business. I’m working sometimes three, four, or five times as hard as males in my space. Why am I not making traction with fundraising?” And so, I’ve seen cohorts and counterparts in my industry going through that, and I’ve seen what a toll it can take. And so, that’s actually specifically how I’ve dealt with imposter syndrome is to not go that route and go a different route so I can keep my business growing in a way that feels authentic and gives me the validation I know I’ll need when it comes time to go for venture funding.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:10:39] Thanks. Jess.

Jess Toolson: [00:10:43] Yeah. I love that, Courtney. First of all, thank you so much for sharing. I think something that I have experienced within Mixhers and imposter syndrome is, first and foremost, when I first started my business, I had been a stay at home mom for 12 years. And I had no experience in the corporate space. I hadn’t actually had much of a career outside of like a high school job, and got married really young and started having kids.

Jess Toolson: [00:11:17] And so, first with Mixhers, what I had to overcome was realizing that I was going to be entering this space already feeling like an underdog having no work experience, not being a previous entrepreneur, and not knowing how to manage people right out of the gate. However, something I have learned since is that actually my experiences as a mother in the home actually has contributed so much to my leadership skills and things that I have developed and been able to contribute to the workplace.

Jess Toolson: [00:11:52] And so, yeah, I still haven’t been back to school. I didn’t graduate with an MBA. I haven’t furthered my college experiences, but I have been in just the school of learning as I go. And I think something that I’ve loved is that I am learning that it’s okay to do things in an entirely unique way than anyone else.

Jess Toolson: [00:12:16] And so, when women are joining the workplace here at Mixhers, the most frequent thing I hear is that this is unlike any other job I’ve ever had. The fact that there is unlimited paid time off, the fact that women are nurturing one another in the workplace, the fact that there is a breastfeeding room that I can bring my newborn to work. I am just totally confident doing things in a unique way because I don’t have experiences that tell me otherwise, and so I’m just going to do things off of what I feel is best for my business.

Jess Toolson: [00:12:49] I think another thing in the health and supplement space for us that we’re overcoming is most testing for the health space has been done on males. And so, when we’re looking at certain ingredients and credentials behind certain ingredients and formulating specifically for women, we are fighting also this battle of making sure that Mixhers is starting to do some of the very first testing of supplements being used specifically on women.

Jess Toolson: [00:13:26] And so, there’s all these statistics out there, 90 percent of people say that they’re sleeping better when using this ingredient. Well, those 90 percent of people are men. Women are not the same. We’re not built the same. And there’s no problem with not being the same. Men need their specific products and we want them to be thriving. And women, we need our specific products, but we need to understand how things are working best for us.

Jess Toolson: [00:13:53] So, I think for us, something that we’ve been definitely trying to overcome is we’re not just another supplement business playing in the men’s space. We are a female specific supplement business, formulating specifically and only for women and women’s hormone health. And so, there’s a little bit of constantly gaining our momentum, gaining our traction, and gaining our footing, and being credible having our own science backed testing done, and showing that, in fact, Mixhers has tested on women specifically.

Jess Toolson: [00:14:31] Anyway, I just think that we relate in some of the male dominant spaces and recognizing that there’s an entire category completely missing.

Courtney Williams: [00:14:47] I’ll say one more thing also on the imposter syndrome piece. That was a really great experience that you added there and I understand and I empathize. One of the things that I’ve dealt with in terms of imposter syndrome as a founder was you don’t really often see very many examples of pregnant founders that are entrepreneurs, and then having their babies and continuing with their business. There’s this mentality if somebody is growing their family or whatever or if they have a newborn, they’re in the startup space, there might be this mentality of like, “Oh. Well then, they’re going to not be effective. They’re not going to be able to grow. They’re not going to be able to focus on the business,” et cetera.

Courtney Williams: [00:15:29] And when I had my son, who’s a toddler now, I remember feeling so nervous on Zoom calls that my baby was going to cry, and then I was going to not be able to be effective on the call or not be taken seriously or not be credible as a businesswoman. And that, I think, has been one of the biggest personal challenges I needed to get through as both an entrepreneur as well as being a first time parent because you have this business persona and then you have this home persona. And sometimes with Zoom, and especially as we were moving through the pandemic and even now, we’re all cognizant of our work and our home lives blending. And that can be really uncomfortable, especially for people that have a certain level of maybe credibility that they’re trying to build. And so, that was one of the biggest challenges that I dealt with as we were starting to build our technology.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:16:27] I love the one thing that you both said differently, was, just basically be yourself. And you’ve brought your full, authentic selves into your work life, which I find fascinating, because I grew up in an era in business where it was very segregated, you had to look and talk and walk the specific way. And both of you are just who you are, and it’s beautiful listening to you guys.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:16:56] And just having our audience gleam this perspective that it’s okay if you don’t have an MBA, you can still be successful in your business and grow it. I’m at awe that you have 32 female employees. I just am so curious, what is that like? That’s such a rarity today to have 32 female employees.

Jess Toolson: [00:17:18] Yeah. And we do have our first two men that have joined the team within the last month. We’ve been taking our own warehousing onsite, and so we now have 32 women and our first two Mixhers men, which is really fun.

Jess Toolson: [00:17:33] But I think one of my favorite things about leading a very dominant strong female team is that one of the most frequently asked questions I get is, the workplace, is it full of drama? Are people, they’re just crying all the time? And it is so offensive to me because I work in a place of women that show up to work so incredibly ready to just get after it. They are so talented. They’re so hungry to learn new things, teach themselves new things, collaborate as an effective team.

Jess Toolson: [00:18:17] And on top of their skillset and their roles being incredibly impressive, we’ve created the most beautiful culture where women are coming to the business from all different walks of life, all different personal experiences, current, past, we all have our individual stories and our individual journeys that we’ve been on. Some women have come from very traumatic workspaces where, like Courtney mentioned, feeling nervous about having their babies. And I have women on my team that the second that they did start their families, they were demoted and their pay was dropped, and just all sorts of things that come with a lot of workplace trauma.

Jess Toolson: [00:19:04] And I have loved being able to take part in building a culture where women come and we’ve created a safe haven for one another. It doesn’t mean that all of our lives look the same, that we have to exactly relate to one another, but we allow one another to be. We celebrate one another. We create safety for one another. We show up for one another in our personal lives.

Jess Toolson: [00:19:31] One of the favorite things I’ve heard from a team member is that every day when she comes to work, it’s like how happy she would get going to elementary school every day and seeing her best friends in the morning at school. And she was like, I get giddy driving into work every day because I know that I’m going to get to see my friends and I’m going to enjoy the hours ahead.

Jess Toolson: [00:19:55] And I love to live by this. I am a stay at home mother turned to fulltime working mother, and I always say, if we’re going to be spending most of our day doing this, we might as well be enjoying it. And so, I want to scale a very, very impressive business and continue to do that, which we have done, but I want to be providing an enjoyable experience for myself and my entire team while we do that.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:20:29] I love that. Thanks. The other question I have is just around how do you manage stress? Both of you have busy lives. We know that stress is the number one killer. It’s the number one predicator. So, what tips do you have for someone who is thinking about starting a business? I think stress is one of the things that gets overwhelming and it stops people from completing their goal of starting a business. What is some of the best practices tips that you want to share?

Courtney Williams: [00:21:12] I’ll start. So, stepping back, I think it’s really important to remember why you start your business. And in my case and with my team – bare with me – we’re really pretty much in love with the problem that we’re trying to solve. We’re not in love necessarily with the technology that we’re developing. I mean, we are. We think it’s great. But we’re really focused on what is the market need, what is happening in the world that needs our technology.

Courtney Williams: [00:21:40] So, to give you an example, the reason that we’re doing what we’re doing is that U.S. is in a maternal health crisis and the U.S. is currently the most dangerous and expensive place in the developed world to give birth. And that is especially bad for Black and indigenous women who actually are dying at two to three times the rate of their white counterparts. And when we look at this, the numbers are actually getting worse. They’ve gotten worse over the last few years. The rates of preeclampsia are going up 19 percent over a five year period. Rates of gestational diabetes are going up 16 percent.

Courtney Williams: [00:22:11] I say all this to say that our business operates in a context that is really stressful. You know, we’ve spent years interviewing women about their maternal health experiences, and what went wrong, and where they needed support, and where technology could have filled in those gaps, and then developed our solutions around that. And so, we’re really, really focused, like hyper focused on the problem that we are trying to solve.

Courtney Williams: [00:22:39] And I believe that when you’re really focused on the problem that you’re out to solve, the mission that you’re out to solve, we’re on a mission to reduce the maternal mortality rate and make pregnancy safer with better outcomes and lower costs, when you have that hyper focus on the mission that you have, then that helps eliminate some of the stress because you know the people that you’re trying to serve, you know what you’re waking up to do every morning, and that is very, very motivating.

Courtney Williams: [00:23:06] That isn’t to say that building a business is not stressful. And for us, you know, the different grants that we’ve applied for have been very high stress, very ridiculously competitive on a national level, and yet you persevere because, again, you’re focused on who you’re serving and how, in our case, our technology can make lives better for people.

Courtney Williams: [00:23:29] And so, in terms of the day-to-day hiring and making sure that our team are all aligned, those can all be stressors as well. But one of the things that we’ve done is I’ve made sure that I hire people that are the smartest that I can access in our industry. I have people that are, like, 30 year veterans that have worked in multinational corporations like Philips and Sonosite and other places that have this amazing experience that we can work together and I can learn from them, and that helps me build my business. That helps reduce stress by hiring people that are amazing with the amazing knowledge that they bring to elevate the level of our team. So, that’s been one thing that I’ve done to reduce stress.

Courtney Williams: [00:24:13] Another thing from a personal level is I never really believed in the power of yoga. I was always more of like a dance person or cardio person. But, truly, yoga has been a transformational force in my life and my business life and my personal life in terms of maintaining my stress and my health. I’ve actually seen a numeric metric value to adding yoga to my life in terms of lowering my blood pressure and improving other health metrics. And so, I think between surrounding yourself with a really good team and taking care of yourself physically, making sure you just make the time – I make the time to do yoga every night at like 9:30 or 10:00 at night because I know that I’ll sleep better and feel better – I think that those two things have made a major impact for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:01] Jess.

Jess Toolson: [00:25:02] Courtney, I love that you brought up the yoga. Because while I don’t practice yoga, I have found the power in self-care and making sure that that is a priority as I grow my business. Because I did find in the first couple of years it was such a hustle. It was such a grind. It was eat, sleep, breathe my business. But that started to take a toll. I started to lose my energy for what I was doing. I started to not enjoy what I was doing. It felt like every day was so daunting ahead. And it just was becoming this beast I needed to face every day.

Jess Toolson: [00:25:44] And instead of continuing to live that way, I decided to reprioritize. And when I reprioritized, I prioritized my health again. And I have now put in my business that every woman has – every team member – sorry. Now I have men – one hour of their workday to have free time, whether it’s meditation, yoga, they can exercise, we have a gym in the office. And I offer that to my team members to have an hour outside of their lunch hour.

Jess Toolson: [00:26:21] And I know that there’s all sorts of things where people have been like, “Oh. What about productivity? What about meetings that need to take place?” I think it’s worth it to invest in my team members and my own health to allow us to have an hour to work on personal development and make sure that we’re functioning as best as we can as individuals, because when we’re all functioning at our best as individuals, that’s when the team can really excel and achieve large goals.

Jess Toolson: [00:26:52] And I’ve seen nothing but even more productivity with allowing that free time in the workday. And they get to choose when they take it. A lot of women just go out on a walk. A lot of women will take a nap. We have a lot of women with newborn babies and that hour to just take a nap and recover from sleepless nights means the world to them.

Jess Toolson: [00:27:15] For me, it’s taking that hour and being able to get in movement and exercise and reprioritizing. My health has been a huge shift in growing my business because I feel like it helps moods, it helps energy, it helps me think more clearly. And, yeah, so I love that you brought up your self-care with your yoga.

Jess Toolson: [00:27:39] I also feel like in the first couple of years, like I mentioned, I really did feel this pressure that everything is ticking and you either run and you either figure out how to do it or someone else is going to do it, and they’re going to do it faster than you. It’s not from a place of only I can succeed, no one else can do it. It’s more I do have a unique business and I do want to move as quickly as I can, but I hope that other people succeed as well.

Jess Toolson: [00:28:08] So, it’s not like I feel like there is always plenty to go around, but I stopped sleeping enough, and I kept working late, and waking up early, and working from the second that I woke up, and I would check my phone the second I woke up to get caught up on emails and respond to team, and all the things. And it was like I was never able to put the business aside to just be able to think about kids in the morning, or just to be able to think about making breakfast. It felt like everything was just a hustle and I did not enjoy it.

Jess Toolson: [00:28:48] And so, I shifted also, I think something that I have changed for self-care is knowing that I clock in and I clock out. And I do not work my business 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And I emphasize that with my team as well. When we clock out at 5:00, everyone has personal lives, people have families, people have interests and hobbies outside of the workplace, and so we have boundaries. Unless it’s an emergency, everything can wait until tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.. I promise it will be there tomorrow and everything will be okay in the meantime. And so, I’ve tried to really instill personal and professional boundaries within my team just to be able to allow team members to truly clock into the workplace and clock out and set it aside until the next workday.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:43] Now, each of your businesses started from something personal that was going on in your lives. Do you have any advice for female founders or potential aspiring female founders out there on how do you know if the problem you’re trying to solve is just a problem you’re having or it’s a problem that there is a market for it?

Lee Kantor: [00:30:07] Courtney, can you share a little bit about how kind of that happened in your industry with your product that you’re marketing? And any advice you have for an aspiring entrepreneur? Or maybe they have a corporate job and they have this problem that they think they have a solution for, but they don’t know if it’s really a business.

Courtney Williams: [00:30:26] Good point. So, I’m a little bit different. So, I come from the corporate angle 100 percent. I mean, I am the person that went and got my MBA, et cetera, and was working a corporate job when I experienced what happened with my sister and then kind of moved forward from there. One of the most important things for me was I definitely stayed in my corporate job until I felt like what we were doing had legs, frankly. So, I’m a big researcher. I’ve done tons of tons of research on this.

Courtney Williams: [00:31:02] There’s a certain program which I can recommend to entrepreneurs if they have an inkling as to a science or technology that they want to research and they want to see if this is a viable technology, there’s a program with National Science Foundation called I-Corps. It’s a grant program, essentially, that provides you the opportunity to go out and interview the people that have the problem that you want to solve.

Courtney Williams: [00:31:28] So, it’s usually based with a university program. So, I’m affiliated with University of Arizona Center for Innovation. So through there, I got this grant. And my team and I, we went out and interviewed just dozens and dozens and dozens of people to understand their maternal health situation, the industry, the problems, et cetera.

Courtney Williams: [00:31:50] Basically, the program enables you to apply the scientific method to customer interviewing. And so, having gone through that, we’re like, “All right. We think we have something here.” So, I applied for a pitch competition and I won that, and that was amazing. And then, I applied for another one and then we won first prize and we got funded. It was the biggest pitch competition in Southern Arizona. And so, I was like, “All right. This is giving me some validation that I need to be able to pursue this more seriously and more completely.” So, that was the impetus and that was what enabled me to determine whether this was a viable business or not.

Courtney Williams: [00:32:29] But we haven’t stopped doing that. I mean, our first product was a handheld ultrasound, that I alluded to. But then, we developed a patient app, which I also mentioned. It’s called The Journey Pregnancy, and that’s the maternal health app. And so, we actually applied that same process before I had my experience with preeclampsia. But how many other people have preeclampsia? Well, quite a few. But I wanted to ensure that logging and tracking maternal health was a thing that people wanted to do. So, again, I went out and I embarked on that program again through National Science Foundation, but at a bigger scale, with a bigger grant, to interview more people, to ensure that we really, really understood as a team that this was a need.

Courtney Williams: [00:33:07] So, we’ve continued to do that. We did that again with remote patient monitoring, which is our third product that we have, which is for clinicians, and went out and interviewed just hundreds of clinicians that we thought maybe had a need, but we weren’t sure.

Courtney Williams: [00:33:21] So, through the research angle, that’s how we’ve been able to tackle whether it made sense to leave a corporate job, take this risk, and then move forward. It’s a big risk and it’s an important one to take because that’s the only way you’ll really know. So, that’s been my approach. I’ll pass it off. I’d like to hear how others have handled this.

Jess Toolson: [00:33:46] I think for me, I knew that I had an opportunity to create a business because through my own health journey, searching for solutions for my hormone imbalance, I had already had dozens and dozens, like you said, of conversations with women that were experiencing the exact same situation that I was. And so, when this formula worked for me and was solving for my health issues, I knew that I had to help the women that were right around me as fast as I could.

Jess Toolson: [00:34:16] And I think that’s one of the most amazing things that I’ve seen in building Mixhers, is how quick women are to want to solve one another’s problems, and wanting to share the good information about there being solutions. And so, yeah, for for me, once I have found a solution that was helpful to my health, I knew that I could think back to all of the many women that I had already had discussions with about the frustrating health issues that we were facing. And if I find a solution, I’ll let you know. And if you find a solution, let me know.

Jess Toolson: [00:34:51] And so, I knew that there were so many women searching for solutions for hormone imbalance that it was more about for us, it was more about normalizing the topic through social media and emails and things like that. Because talking about hormone health is and was very taboo at the time. Talking about low libido, talking about PMS symptoms and solutions, talking about insomnia, all these topics that women, we have felt in the past that we have to tiptoe around a little bit. And so, for us, it’s more so normalizing the topics and allowing women to have conversation around hormone imbalance and then also providing the solution in our products.

Jess Toolson: [00:35:40] I think the last thing, too, is I would recommend for women that are wondering if they have an opportunity on their hands is I think women are fantastic problem solvers. And I believe that starting a business is incredibly hard. It’s going to test you to your core. But when you are personally passionate about your product and what you’re offering, and maybe it’s changed your life or it’s changed a family member’s life, and it’s something that you believe so strongly in, just like Courtney had mentioned, that is the fulfillment that you will need on the days that your business is challenging you and testing you.

Jess Toolson: [00:36:20] You will know that it’s worth pushing through because you have people that you have already helped. You have people that have already seen the benefits of using the app or using our products. And you think to those people that are utilizing what you offer and needing those resources. I think that a lot of times it’s like passion and how much I believe in my products that gets me through the stressful days.

Jess Toolson: [00:36:48] And so, I feel like I would recommend to women if what you believe you may have at your fingertips is an opportunity, make sure that it is something that you will be passionate about even on the days that have been sleepless, even on the days when cash is tight, things like that. Passion will continue to fuel you and I believe that that opens up opportunities.

Lee Kantor: [00:37:14] Now, you both mentioned the importance of a culture in your organization. Jess, can you explain how you kind of mindfully put in place this type of corporate culture that you’ve established in your organization? A lot of companies give it lip service. And if you don’t kind of proactively do things a certain way, a culture is going to form whether you are intentional or not. And it sounds like you were very intentional around the type of organization you wanted to build.

Jess Toolson: [00:37:51] I love that you said that I did this very mindfully. I’m actually not sure that I did. I did I wanted to create a workplace that I was enjoying personally and that I was seeing women thriving. And I wanted there to be friendship. I wanted there to be connection. And I wanted it to feel like I was surrounded by my friends every day at work.

Jess Toolson: [00:38:14] And so, I don’t know, other than I feel like creating time to connect with one another, we make sure to have plenty of company activities. We have a lot of celebrations for one another. We have birthday parties. We have baby showers. We have moving parties if someone’s leaving the state. And I feel like the goal of mine has always been that women that join this company need to know that they have friendship in their peers at work. And it really has naturally taken place. And it’s been almost five years, and we did just win an award in Utah. We were voted Best Place To Work For in the State of Utah, which I feel very proud of.

Jess Toolson: [00:39:08] And I appreciate that you said that I did this mindfully. I think it’s more so been efforts as a team to just nurture relationships and actually see one another as humans, not just robots working in a business. We’re humans that also get to contribute to a workplace. And I believe that it’s the team that is naturally wanting to create a very family feeling culture.

Lee Kantor: [00:39:40] Courtney, can you share? I mean, you’ve worked a lot in corporate settings, so you understand culture doesn’t just happen. The leadership has to really kind of lean into this and it’ll form around that. Can you speak to that a little?

Courtney Williams: [00:39:54] Yeah. In my corporate life, I definitely saw lead by example. That was the biggest takeaway that I saw in the different Fortune 500s that I worked in. And that was important to me to then translate to my company.

Courtney Williams: [00:40:09] So, I’ll give you an example. In terms of hierarchy, we have a culture in our company that is very focused on I as CEO and co-founder, I do not have all the answers. And I am very, very forthright about saying I want my team to work together with me collaboratively, like we’re very collaborative to find the answers. So, there’s no necessarily I’m the CEO, but that doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily the last word with a lot of this stuff.

Courtney Williams: [00:40:41] Another piece of our culture is we serve women or folks that give birth, we serve folks that are on a maternal health journey, and we’re all about making that journey as safe and supported as possible with our technology. And so, that translates to our meetings, for example, when we have our collaborative meetings, our all hands or our team meetings, it’s important to include a service element in that because we are serving other people with our technology. And so, we always have a service activity anytime we have an all hands meeting. And that is a really important component of our work, and that helps bring together folks on our team around our mission, and it helps recenter us before we go and dig in and get our work done. But we feel like service project is also part of our work.

Courtney Williams: [00:41:33] The other piece is that we are a very diverse team, diverse in terms of talents and also in terms of where people are located. And so, for me, it’s really, really important to not restrict folks in terms of where they’re located. So, we’ve always been remote, and I foresee us being remote for our future as we grow. And that is one of the satisfaction drivers that I see on our team. People can work when they want, when they need, when it works for them. And that is important to me to continue, because if we’re all going to be working together on a common goal, you have to be comfortable in your environment. And so, being able to do that remotely has been important especially for the folks that are on our software development team. So, those are some of the elements that we’ve put in place just in terms of building our culture, and I plan to continue that as we continue to grow.

Lee Kantor: [00:42:26] So, is there —

Jess Toolson: [00:42:27] Courtney, I love that — oh. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Lee Kantor: [00:42:30] No. Go ahead, Jess.

Jess Toolson: [00:42:31] I just wanted to tell Courtney that I love that she brought up this working remote. We have a very hybrid schedule. We’re in office about three days a week and the other days are remote. And all of winter, we’ve given Fridays completely off for people to go and enjoy the ski season and to spend the holidays with family and things like that.

Jess Toolson: [00:42:57] And I think it just helps people. People want freedom. People want to be able to make choices, have opinions about when they’re working, how they’re working. And I appreciate the freedom personally. And so, we also have a very, very flexible schedule and I feel like it it definitely contributes positively to the company culture.

Lee Kantor: [00:43:23] Now, Jess, is there anything new coming up? Is there anything we could be doing? Do you need anything from us and the listeners?

Jess Toolson: [00:43:33] Yeah. So, Mixhers has actually been working for about a-year-and-a-half at this point on an entire company rebrand. So, we’ve been getting ready to have our products be more shelf stable for retail. We’ve redone all of our packaging. The company name will still be Mixhers, but we’ve redone our logos, our icons, everything. And so, this month in April, we’ll be announcing this rebrand. We’re really excited about that. And we’re launching two new products that have been heavily, heavily requested by our customers. So, we would appreciate everyone coming over, following along, engaging with what they think of the rebrand. And, also, if you are interested in the products, we would obviously appreciate a purchase. The website is just mixhers.com, M-I-X-H-E-R-S.

Lee Kantor: [00:44:24] Courtney, any news or anything we could be doing for you?

Courtney Williams: [00:44:31] Definitely. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate that. So, if you know anybody that is getting ready to go on a pregnancy journey, please tell them about our app, The Journey Pregnancy. It’s really important as a parent, not just to be entertained with some of the other pregnancy apps out there. For example, knowing that you’re 30 weeks pregnant and your baby’s a size of a watermelon or a cantaloupe, that’s entertaining and that’s helpful, but that does not help your maternal health.

Courtney Williams: [00:44:57] And so, downloading our app can. You can log and track your blood pressure, your blood glucose, your moods, your symptoms, all the way from your positive pregnancy test through your postpartum recovery. And if your numbers go out of range, our app will let you know immediately when the result is something that you need to follow up with your doctor. So, if you know somebody that’s pregnant, have them download our app. It’s a free download on the iOS and Android store.

Courtney Williams: [00:45:23] The other thing that we have coming along down the line is we just launched Pregnancy Wellness Coaching. And so, if you are somebody that feels like you want extra support, you want more than that 7 or 15 minutes that you get with your doctor each time at a prenatal visit, we’ve got somebody for you. We’ve got qualified nurse practitioners that are certified in maternal mental health as well as maternal wellness. And if you need that support, we can provide that through an elevated subscription of our app.

Courtney Williams: [00:45:52] So, I would just say, you can follow us on Instagram, @emaginestech. As well as on TikTok, we’ve got lots of different educational videos that we put out and informational pieces that will help people that are looking for research backed information as they go through pregnancy. And we’re @thejourneypregnancy on TikTok.

Lee Kantor: [00:46:12] And the website?

Courtney Williams: [00:46:14] And our website is emaginest, E-M-A-G-I-N-E-S-T,.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:46:20] Good stuff. Dr. Pamela, what a show.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:46:24] You know, I think I say this a lot, but this was incredible. I took so many notes. I was blown away by some of the information you provided that is easily applied. These women founders start their business even if their years in business, even if they have had years in business, some of the information you provided is life changing. And so, I want to thank you both for participating today. Lee, any parting words?

Lee Kantor: [00:46:57] It’s just really great to see people with an idea take the leap into entrepreneurship. And they each went through it their own way and their own time. And they built their team accordingly and the culture. I think it’s so inspirational for the listeners, especially the people, there are so many people that have great ideas that are sitting on the fence who are afraid to take the leap. And to have you to share your story about how you were able to do that.

Lee Kantor: [00:47:26] And you get up every morning knowing there’s a lot of people to help and that’s what gets you going and you know the importance of what you’re doing is that you are helping others. So, thank you for sharing your story. You’re both doing such important work and we appreciate you. All right. This is Lee Kantor for Dr. Pamela Williamson. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.