
Showing the power of startup women’s health brands, P&G buys This is L (YC S15) - pb
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/05/showing-the-power-of-startup-womens-health-brands-pg-buys-this-is-l/
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todayiamme
This article reminds me of the time when I told someone from the
tech/rationality community that I was working for a consumer health tech
startup that was focused on women's fertility and menstrual health. I was
helping to design the UX of the product that had to do with the actual
tracking of their cycles and their health. My friend had a reaction that was
quite typical of most people I talked to, but it's one that I've kept around
as an example of what not to do;

    
    
      is this, like, very, and truly, *the* best thing you can do with your time?   like, back-of-the-envelope: what is the amount of money women spend on keeping track of their periods?  like, the savy of them buys a $.5 notepad, and circles the dates?
    

At the time I was shocked that he didn't even realise that this was a problem,
but it was actually that lack of empathy that made me realise that a lot of
people in the tech community don't actually think about some of the more
germane problems facing the lives of 50.5% of the population --- it was quite
eye-opening for me. Our schemas were so different that I found it quite
difficult to explain why this mattered. Sure, I could go over the normal
talking points - a) everyone's periods are different and they are often
different every time, b) there are tons of possible complications and you can
get into a world of hurt over the slightest variations in the hormonal cycle,
their genetics, and the health of their ovaries, uterus, or even vagina, and
c) it wasn't that easy to catch these while they were happening and women most
often discovered issues the hard way. Ergo, giving women a map to their bodies
- no matter who they are or where or how they were born - would give them a
greater sense of control over their lives. But he - and a lot of other folks -
just wouldn't get it.

Maybe, finally, seeing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow will get more
people interested in these problems and talk to the women around them about
it?

~~~
tropo
That $.5 notepad can handle all 3 of your talking points, and it comes with
privacy. (read the recent HackerNews article about DNA info being secretly
shared if you can't see the problem)

Getting fancy, you can buy nice charts with colorful status stickers. Minus
the stickers, you can print the charts on any printer. All of this is private.

~~~
todayiamme
No, it can't. And you're missing the point of why we're doing this. Such kind
of tracking is powerful not because it helps you keep track of what happened,
but what _could_ happen. There are patterns that humans can't easily discern
that correlate with everything from ovarian cysts to endometriosis ---
detecting the problem early on, gives people a better, longer life in the long
run, and prevents potentially fatal complications in the case of pregnancy.

What you're saying is exactly like a logistics company saying - why should we
enter our logs into this computer? What's the point? A pen and paper seem to
work just fine... We all know how that story turned out. This story is playing
out with women's lives instead of efficiency points/dollars in the global
economy (though at some level it does map to do that as well), and real people
are suffering as a result. They deserve better.

~~~
tropo
I think you are being dismissive of a solution that you can't datamine. The
privacy violation is real, unless you made an app without any kind of network
permissions.

Hint for those watching: HIPPA doesn't apply to self-gathered self-entered
data, and there are many (insurance companies, drug companies, diaper
services...) who would love to know this data.

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bsder
Quoting article:

> "The combination of a non-technical, female founder operating in the
> consumer packaged goods market with a mission-driven company was an anomaly
> in the Silicon Valley of four years ago"

Um, yes, it's an anomaly in _Silicon Valley_.

However, go sit on the parking shuttle bus at MD&M West and just listen.
_Everyone_ is basically trying to find a marketing angle to sell the same
undifferentiated consumer products.

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FabioFleitas
Congrats Talia and team! :)

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ameister14
Good for them. I hope working for P&G enables them to do everything they are
planning at scale.

