Tampons, Taxes, and Taboo: The Cost of a Period
54:01 Share

To outside world I was like quote, quote very successful .

for my age was like nineteen because you actually showed an August pad with real blood on IT.

This temp taxis unfair and consumers shouldn't have to pay for this.

This episode of network and chill is brought to you by Marshals. I love sharing new tips on how to make the most of your money. And one of the biggest misconceptions about looking good is that you have to spend a lot, and i'll be you. I want those high quality items at all last, but i'm also on the hunt for the best deal. How can I dress and brand name on train pieces about maxing out my credit? Ds, my go to place to do that is Marshals where I know I can get the brands I love at twenty to sixty percent off retail Prices, visit a store or had to martial dock com to see what good stuff you can find today.

What's approach? Friends, welcome to another episode of nett ork and chill on your host living into A, K, A urge B, F, F, and your favorite wallstreet curly. And Normally when I jump into the studio, I come ready to show up and show out.

But we're for being honest. I feel like hot garbage today. I have a headache, stabbing cramps and muscle ex.

And i'm guessing some of the best is listening already. Know what's going on. I'm on my period. I like one point eight billion other people in the world monstrat every single month. And i'm lucky when IT comes to micco cle.

IT sucks, but I am able to purchase all the things I need to manage, IT tampons, pad period on these advil for craps, whatever gummy Candy I can get my hands on, and anything else I might need. But some people aren't so lucky. Sixteen point nine million people in the U.

S. Alone live in period poverty. Essentially, they can afford the super necessary items that they need to care for themselves during their period.

On average, most people are spending anywhere between twenty to forty bucks per month on period care, not even including the four to seven percent tacks on these necessary items that many states still charge. And Frankly, none of that seems fair. So let me introduce you to someone who's not only trying to change the perception of periods, but the period industry itself. She's a social entrepreneur, content creator and cofounder of August nadia OK moda. Welcome to network and chill.

Thank you for adding me.

I am so excited for you being here. Uh, we are old friends, but before we get started, I need to ask you an incredibly personal, pRobing topic and question. Do you remember your first period? And what was IT like?

Yes, I do. It's like seed into my memory. I got my first period when I was twelve same. And I remember IT very vividly because I was about to go to the airport to fly and visit my dad and I feel like, you know dad's period and it's a little a little awkward um and I just had to go p and pulled my pants down and I think my mind was either I shot my pants because I was Brown or IT was i'm internally bleeding and i'm about to die yeah and it's interesting because I knew what a period was right in theory in theory but like there are so many details and I think it's so jarry when you get your period, even if you know blood is coming, nobody tells you how much blood it's gonna. Nobody tells you it's going to be goop or have some solid just sold IT chunks in IT or that I might be Brown right um but yeah, first period is something that I think about a lot. I actually wrote IT as like the introduction to my book because I think that was like, I can't this is why my first introduction like this being my whole career eventually.

Um when that happened to you, what did you do like did you talk to your friends about IT? Did you talk to your mom? Did you call her like, I remember getting my period in middle school and coming home and being like embarrassed, like I didn't want to tell anyone that has happened.

I was very Lucy because I grip IT with a single mom and two sisters. So we had in all girl house OK. We also shared one bathroom, and so there was no hiding anything.

Yeah, I remember growing up. And I would always make fun of my mom because he would put her like underway that had some blood on IT and just soaked them in the bath. yeah. And so even before I got my period, like I knew what I was, but I always associated IT with kind of like, I don't know something that was gross yeah, but very natural. But when I got my period, I remember like taking off my underwear, literally bringing IT to shop in my mom's face, being like like i'm dying because I don't think I thought I was a period when I saw blood even though I conceptually knew a period was IT wasn't like this is a period IT was like this seems too much too messy to be a .

period yeah just like .

nose red like none of this chunk anything chunk was chunky and and over me like I showed my mom directly and he was kind of like, you know, made IT into a celebratory yeah sort of moment and then put me on .

a plane to go with my dad um and you've come a very, very large way from chunk city. You are now what I like to dim a period poverty vigano um okay it's cool. It's cool. I back okay um and you co founded a nonprofit in twenty fourteen called period inc. What inspired you when you were so Young to like start on this journey because most girls were very embarrassed about this topic and you were like, let me charge forward yeah .

I mean I was not immediately like get my period. This is amazing. I'm so confident .

like not your short .

right now and I get red. I was in middle school where so hiding my time and I remember I also use a super early on and I remember.

do you like that because i'm scared they'll get to stuck?

No, I I had like a really bad experience so that a few years ago, it's actually something we've been talking about a lot of August because I do think that there is a need for like more innovation around IT anyways. But I remember being in middle school and like, you know, boys would find tampons and then shoot them around the room. I was like, such a big deal.

Everyone talked about IT. And I remember like one friend I felt had betrayed me because he told some boys that I used a silicon cup. And then everybody was going around saying I was loose because I could, like, fit a cut top.

Yeah and I I was kind of wild. So I was more immediately in my early period, is like, so very embarrassed about. And then I think for me, when I was sixteen, I for the first time started hearing stories of period poverty. And at the time my family was going through like a rough spite, like we weren't living in our own home, we had moved in with some friends and I knew that like money was very, very high.

Um but then when I started talking to homeless women, literally on my way to school, because I would have to change buses in an area that was like a lot of homeless ss around, I would was just always very curious about like their life story and unexpectedly ly started hearing about, you know, I get my period and then I have to use toilet paper, socks, Brown paper, grocery bags, cardboard to take care of someones period and I remember meeting women and they would show me like how to make a makeshift pat out of cardboard you rip off the side, the core gated inside, you can rub in between your hands and IT becomes really soft. And for me, that was just like a complete banded rip off, like eyes open. Yes, how have I never thought of this before? Like huge privilege check that slaughter me in the face.

And I became so passionate about IT. And I think when you're in middle, the public school system, we had community service where I was like your assignment is to find something you care about and the go volunteer for a nonprofit. And I remember being six scene, like looking at non profits and not being able to find any in my area that did anything about access superior products and also at the same time, you know, talking to shelters and realizing like they don't even provide them. And so I think I was like an immediate gap. And then I think I google how do you have to be a starting on profit, just kind of spying.

I absolutely love that. Can I ask you a pretty personal question? You mentioned that at the time you were living the not in your own home like you were still trying to let go to school and be like a Normal kid. Like did you find that the financial hardships your family was facing was preventing you from doing any of the things that you potentially wanted to do, like whether to be, you know, create this nonprofit or do anything like how to do that ever hold you back?

I really, I don't think so. I think of anything I kind of in motivated me to just hustle, you know. And I know hustle Carries like a lot of mutation that's I know.

But I think you know, being sixteen, I was also the school ship kid at this very expensive private school. Like to the point that, like, I was literally the poster child for financial. And like at the gallows, they were the literal poster. Like I was on the poster, I was on the website.

Like at the galas they would put me up on age and be like talk about trauma, you know but so I was like this scholarship kid, but I think I knew, like I remember getting to that high school, they had no free and reduce lunch and had been on free and reduce lunch all the middle school. But my mom really like SHE, always encouraged me, if you, if we can afford the lunch, go talk to someone about IT. And so like we, they created free reduced lunch because of me and my sister, you know.

And then IT was like, bus tickets are expensive, so they created some sort of, you know, step and literally to get me a bus ticket. And so I think for me, I was always trained like, you know, there are financial obstacles, but you need you just need to advocate for them and and I think for me, I also saw my mom do that right? Like, you know, we were in a tough position and he was like, we're moving in with friends.

We're going to rent out the condo that we have and that's going to be what feeds, you know, like I saw my mom really, you know, kind of have that mentality of like where we just have to make IT work. And so I think that when I was embarking on this nonprofit thing, I was like, I have no money to put behind this, but I think I know something about fun reading because I see people doing big sales at school yeah. And so when we started fundraising, I was literally like, I would talk to any parents and ask them for like five dollars, ten dollars.

And then I got in trouble once because I took, like, the parent directory that you get, and I was writing hand writing cards, all the rich kid parents, and literally, like, not my friend's parents, just like, literally any parents I knew. Hi I, not A I must soften at the school. I care a lot about this issue. Did you know that if you don't have period products, please know, donate at this paypal, go on me and I wouldn't mail those. And then I got in trouble for using the parent directory.

How do they find out?

Because all these parents were .

like a teaching are.

How did you get my address? And but, you know, I became that. And then I remember just googling like, oh, what is a grant? How do I pay for a grant? And my mom had worked in on profits a bit. And so you would encourage me, you, this is what IT looks like to get a grant application, and I would literally apply to grants like before I went to sleep like I was just right because most of them are just like some web form that ask .

complicated questions and you're doing so much during this time. I'm curious, do you have like one piece of advice or something that your mom taught you that helped you be so resilient?

I honestly think that like looking back on IT, IT was like a very unhealthy level of hustle. Has so you like I I don't even my mom, if anything, through high school was like, girl, calm down. Yeah, yeah, rest. But like, I started this nonprofit on top of, I put a lot of pressure on myself to get into harvard specifically. yeah. Like I started stressing about what college going to do when I was nine years old and my mom sent me to therapy because he was like, you're nine, you should not be studying acceptance rates to like stanford, harvard.

But my mom told me pretty early on, like we don't have money for you to like, be able to go to college unless you go to harvard or some place with a big endowment, because I will be free, you know, because it's like we always made below the poverty line so that I knew if I got in with need blind applications, IT would be free. And so for me, that was like that you had to I had to die. You and my mom had gone to harvard to so like, I knew that I was I had the privilege of like, yeah, I knew I was within grass.

But I like overcompensated. I was like doing the nonprofit, but I didn't. The nonprofit, to me was like my passion project.

But like I was doing, all the other self that I thought would help me getting into cultures was like doing sixteen clubs. I was like president, a mock trial and M. U.

N. And did the was on the baseball team like, did all of the stuff. And so for, but I think for me, I was from a place of fear.

IT was like, I need to get in to school. I need to get out of the situation. I need to figure out a good career.

I need to know IT was a lot of anxiety. And like in senior or junior and senior or high goal, I was like regularly passing out and going to the emergency room for exhaustion. And all the nurses knew me because I be whiled into this rocking emergency room and it'll be like girls back because he didn't sleep.

Like I IT isn't not healthy. And that I say, like complicated relationship with hostile because this is like twenty fourteen, twenty sixteen, right? Like this is one whole culture.

And like grow boss culture is like peak. Yes, always never sleep, work till you die. And I literally do that. Yeah yeah.

So ultimately, spoiler alert. Nadia does get into harvard. yes. And we are starting our amazing elwoods dream. Well, I guess you want to love school there.

But so you're at harvard and you are running nonprofit. Let's talk about something that you have secretly told me you are quite embarrassed about. Now you actually wrote a book, yes, period power, a manifesto for the menstrual movement. How like what made you want to do this?

Well, at this point, my freshman year of college, like the non profit was pretty big, right? Like we were at that point, had like a seven figure budget ah my freshman year we hired our first employee who was actually graduating senior hard. Oh and so like I feel like the organization was like becoming a real thing. I was not yet paid for my job but I was like about to be paid I think like forty ID a year um but that's .

more money than like a freshman or software in colleges ever seen in.

yes. So to me, like I was becoming a real organization, which I was really excited about um but I felt like there's this barrier where I was doing all this speaking and I interviews press getting asked the same question over and over again of like what is a period? Like what is period poverty? Why does period signal exists? I still get these questions today, right? Like a lot of questions like I don't think it's stigmatize. Why do you think it's stigmatize? And I how could you do not think it's stigmatic?

Because I have to slip a camp on. I sleep to pass .

into a friend and I felt like there are all these questions I kept having to like answer and at the time, like I start taking, like, gender studies classes and I just was like, oh, there these manifestos, these books, like the red stockings manifesto, girl manifesto, glorious dinner rote, these amazing manifesto for, like the second wave feminism of, like the one thousand six years and seventies.

And I kind of fell in love with this idea of like having a text or a manifesto that I could hand to someone and be like, this is what we're doing but before that, so I had kind of started looking into, like, what does IT take to write a book? And I literally action before my freshman year, had google how to write a book, how to publish a book. yeah.

And I remember finding, like, a wicky answers, you know what? That step one and a little wiki, Vicky, how? And I literally just followed those steps. And he was like, email, literary agents.

And I made a sheet of, like, all literary agent emails are public, and one hundred literary agents, and sent this out to everything I think I probably heard back from five in two, said, yes. And then we eventually published with my dream publisher, uh, Simon, and tuesday. But at the same time I was running for office and I was like running for cambridge city council.

Wow, like accidentally became the Youngest asian american political candidate in the us. At the time. And I think for me, I was like a critical year of evaluating like many different career options.

Because coming from an activist, anti capitalist background of like, nonprofits grass's organizing, I was starting to realize, like, money runs, everything runs, and I literally to do my nonprofit job, I have to fund in from proctor and gambles that, you know, you leave the biggest corporate corporations to do the work, right? Corporate donor is literally drive so much of the nonprofit ctr. Then I was running for office because I was like, okay, non profit seems stuck.

Let me go into the public sector. And there was like, oh, we measure electively based off of how much money you raise. And my whole job is a political candidate, is to raise fucking money.

And the first, when I get from political consultancy, much money do you have in the bag? I empty my savings account into my own campaign, which was, by the way, twelve thousand dogs. But like, I ended that campaign like zero dollars.

My bank of yeah and was like, yeah, this isn't for me. Like i'm never running again but you know we made issues, student turnout and know the campaign ended. I lost. We came in twelve out of twenty six for like nine spots. So I felt like, yeah middle the pack um but for me, honestly, I think that happened.

The book came out and I think that was a moment where I was like, I really think my future is in business, like there's something that i'm too frustrated by in the world of the public sector, not on profit space. And I think I really need to reconsider my ideas of wealth and capitalism. And so I changed my whole major to like study capitalism, because I really did grow up hating capitalism, like thinking, IT was like the worst, you know.

And I still do in many ways. But I think that running for office and then coming to terms like the research for the book and you know writing the book, I was really like, wow, the period signal exists because of the industry yeah. And so like this needs to change, but they have all the power. But I think that year, like twenty seventeen, and I was like, I think business is my few .

business is if you could look back today as today idea, what would you tell that? Girl.

I honestly to sleep. Like, I think that at that point I sleeps maybe one to two hours. And a how are you functioning? barely. Like, I was barely functioning. I mean, I was, you know, trying to work several jobs.

You run this nonprofit and then I like, I would think I was at the time I was also a researcher is in at the music college department like, you know, cleaning for a yoga studio. I was very like, I always overcommitted yeah. And I just stopped really stop talking to my family.

Stop talking to friends was just like, I just the nonprofit is to take off the camp. Gn is happening like for literally almost a year. I canvas for four to six times a day, would walk up and down the streets with my little brushes, knocking on doors, talking about, like, local issues. But I was exhausted. And so I think when I look back at that time, like I, I, of course, like I look back at and like wall, like the outside world, I was like, quote, very successful for my age was like nineteen but like I just remember being so depressed, like so tired, so like associated and just like trying to you do everything and well, yeah I think I just like I don't really remember most of those years. I would think I was just like, so so like completely black up yeah 啊 okay.

so you make this decision. You like, I want a transition from a nonprofit to focusing on business. You want to create an actual menstrual products or a company.

What specifically was you know in your mind when you were like, I need to reinvent something but hasn't gone through a lot of innovation? I don't know, quite some time, decades, maybe centuries, like yeah, the products have gone a little bit cooler or the packages gone a little bit Better. But what made you want to create Better pads, tampons and products?

Well, I didn't immediately jump to thinking like i'm going to create at my own company. I was actually like, let me try to change the current induct. So my second business was a jerzy marketing agency that I joined that my new friends had started working on. And for years, like, literally tempco always cotex like they were client of fine. And this Jenny marketing agency was working kind of with, like, the largest glamorous jerzy marketing.

And I was trying to, yeah, I was like, I literally was like, let me go to wear these are and I knew a lot of the kind of big uses at at those places because of they were literally donors of mine yeah and I had just like influencer gigs with them, like I knew them. But for few years, I was like i'm going to go within the industry. I want to work within IT.

That's what I need to change. And so I didn't immediately jump to like let me start my own company. Um and you are just .

influence their gigs like where you are on social media, building a following at that.

But at that point I was six thousand doers but are still making six figures input because IT was like a folks person and IT was actually like a huge driver. I like most of IT we go to the on profit, right? And so like I was the biggest private donor to my not that by the time I was maybe like twenty and you know just continuing to kind of use, I basically realized I could monetize my image for like donations to the non profit.

So did a lot of that. But I would say that for me, like I tried for years to change these companies from within. And then I was like, they don't listen.

And then I was learning things about the product that I lose. Just not excited about IT like at the time most pads have enough plastic for three to five plastic bags each. Oh, no wonder they feel like a plastic day.

You or like there know there's it's not as easy for them to be like, oh, will put the ingredient on the the box. Like I was coming up against all this kind of strife that I was like, I think you just, I wish I could just start from scratch. yes.

And so I would say, like, I know two years later, I was like, I really was obsessing over this idea every day. I wish I could just do with myself. And I couldn't stop thinking about IT.

And then in two thousand and nine, nine and kind of told the non profit, I need to transition. And I replace myself as a executive director. The nonprofit is big enough that IT needs a new leader. And let me step out of this consulting firms so that I can kind of have like no conflict interest and and go start my own thing. And then early twenty twenty, right before the pandemic started, decided to start this company.

And you said, you know, you wanted to go out, start your own thing, go IT alone. What you did IT you've a cofounder. yeah. How did you find this cofounder? How did you know this is the person I want, you know to get into bed with.

I have always had a cofounder, so even the nonprofit. My cofounder was a sst guy in my class named vans, and he was basically a CEO, right? Like I I am very aware of like my weaknesses, yes, and my weaknesses are like attention to detail, spread sheet, anything, financial Operations. Like I am very big.

so like .

for me, like I ve always had a cofounder. Yes, and I actually think it's like what I was diagnosed orderly personal. I be disorder a few years ago, which is basically like I actually have really low self confidence and like very low sense of self worth.

And I like have a lot of epoxy m but I think that the way of main items for me, and like where I think it's kind of become a superpower, is i'm hyper aware of like I wanted, like are myself with people that I think are much smarter, much you know, more intelligent and strategic than me. And so i've always had a cofounder like there was no part of me that was like, let me be a solo on. And so my cofounder of August is actually the original cofounder in COO of jee consulting, the jersey market urgency.

So we both kind of left to start this. Um and that company has since sold to uta earlier this year, which is really exciting. So he can say like he's an excited found exciting um but but yeah I mean, so I always had a cofounder and I think that for me, like I was not negotiable. I know what my shrinks are and my shrink are like direct a compliment with what his shrinks are.

That's awesome. okay. So you come together with this cofounder and you're like, day one, you've got a White board. You're sitting at a table like this. How do you start a company?

Oh my god, there's no right way to do this. I think one of the things that I did not realize at the beginning, like I knew nothing about raising capital. I did not know what VC stood for. I remember have venture capital after capital.

I remember pulling some of my friends at harvard who would like taking gap years being like, so you raise capital like, what is what even is that like? And remember like asking kind of my body is at school to like explain convertible note versus a safe document. What does that mean? To have shares is like, literally you have to learn a whole new language, right? And you know, I did not expect to have to raise so much money.

But like first, all IT took us a months to figure out what the product was going to be. I thought that I was going to be immense al cup. Then we did consumer of interviewing, like ninety nine percent of the people did not want to use a mental kind of similar to you. It's scary. The idea of doing .

IT what stock nodia?

No, exactly. There's a lot of fear. And so I was like, we need to actually make a very approach able, you know what looks exactly like the tampa s party? You're actually is much Better and much cleaner.

So we we had to decide on what the product was, that a lot of kind of interviewing community building, make sure that I was actually something we could do. Then IT was a lot of research because carbines are at class to fd approved medical device. So like you have to do a lot of research by and who are the manufacturers?

What are the kind of standards that we really need to hold ourselves, too. And then again, I had to learn so much around if like doing beauty or a perl, I think is actually a lot easier to get started. That's why you see so many of them because the minimum quantity orders are quite small.

Yeah if I want to do, let's say like a run of uh t shirts for example, I can buy fifty. Ah so yeah with tampons and pads do you can do that? There's a minimum quantity. So like that's in the hundreds of thousands, usually like the minimum quantity order will be like fifty thousand boxes. Boxes is not just temples, like again, it's different per many future.

So there's no such thing is like let me do a small room of a new product, a test maybe if you truly just like thought like the most simple product, but we wanted to customize the temp s like there's a lot of like our temp ung, just like like a temp on maybe, but there is so much into how does the temp on open? What is the string look like? You know, what is the many structuring process? How is the applicator is the contact is along like we customize a lot of the product.

And so for us, IT was like we had to raise capital. Then you have to think about the cost of how does IT get here, what kind of checks to go through? Where is the warehouse doing a packaging? How do you pay for ground shipping? And then how do you think about the website? Like there's so much in IT. And I remember like when we first started find raising, I was like we're going to raise three hundred k and they knows six hundred k and we ended up raising two million dollars before we launched. So like over the course of the first year, and that was our proceed ground.

Hi, rich friends. You know, I love to talk about the habits of rich people. And one thing they all have in common is that they find ways to keep their money.

That's something my partners and martials can help be you with, because rich people look the part they are wearing high quality brand and clothes. But what you might not realize is that they didn't painful Price. That's how they are staying rich. And while you're on your way of getting rich, you can get the same good stuff without breaking the bank by shopping at Marshals, had to local Marshals or visit Marshall dot com to shop their ever changing selection of high quality on transgenders.

Ah but so yeah, I would say the first year of the company was fundraising, getting rejected a lot and then I was obsessing of a brand. And in the middle of this, in the middle of being prelaunch and raising our precy ground, I went to rehab for mental health. Break down, burn now, yeah, cancel.

You know, everything IT was good. So I like, I had to put fusing and hold. But going to rehab before the company launch was like the best thing in my life. I like, totally say, my life. And I think I like such a Better .

founder because of IT and probably feeling a lot stronger. And I did want to bring up a touchy subject. You recently caught a little heat online because you actually showed an August pad with real blood on IT. And no, when we see these commercials, it's like that blue gater ID ah that goes on tam pons and pads. What made you want to use a liquid that either was blood or look like blood verses using the blue?

I mean, it's interesting because and I think this is where always say, like I again out the gate of getting my period was never like immediately so bad of my period. Like IT took me six years working in the period space to even consider putting my LED online. But IT was as soon as we launched the companies. So like june twenty twenty one, when I started getting on tiktok and I had zero followers when we launch the company and I think it's a big misconception, is now people see that I have like five million follow online and they're like, oh, she's a tiktok er that started at brand but like, no, when I sorted the brand, I think I had thirteen k on instagram yeah like I had no tiktok that was just to support .

your nonprofit yeah, you were literally making money to put into your nonprofit.

But he was like, I was an influence. I was a microscope son. I was always signed like a spoon person.

But you know who you talk about this issue, but I started getting on tiktok as a way to like, okay, actually, you know, if you look at the p nl of a company, we need to lower our cost of acquisition and have a revenue grow. So like, someone needs to go organically and we can pay a bunch of money for paid marketing and influences. We need to like, someone needs to go viral.

And so I was just making content. And then when I started just showing the pads in the tamp ons, immediately, people didn't want to see the product. But then people who were curious, we're like, if it's more sustainable, how can you prove that IT works just as well, right? Because we think like a straw, like I hate paper straw.

I think we think more sustainable products do not work as well. And so the question I was getting was like, how does that really work, you know? And I think immediately, I don't know.

Like there was not a lot of thinking. I was like, okay, they're asking me how that works. I just need to show them how IT works. And I was like changing my pad like, this is how IT works. You IT is just very obvious to me.

IT was not a very well thought out like, yeah, just like they are asked, I may answer ing yeah and similarly like I think I was seeing all these you know small business has come to life on tiktok where I was like I started the swim suit brand this is what IT looks like on me ah and there's something powerful about seeing IT warn right? And there is so much about specifically our pads that I wanted to show like our night pads have this second wing IT covers my, but you can see my but crack. Let me show you how IT works like IT just felt very natural.

You just wanted to show people the real deal versus like this fake I guess like cookie cutter version of like what a product could look like on a perfect body and a perfect situation where blue liquid and fell onto IT instead of real blood yeah and .

I mean all so I think you know at that point, we've been working in secret on this part of a year and half. I think I was also just like so proud of what we had created like you just wanted to show everybody .

yeah I I love that and you talk a little bit about um po poverty and the unfairness of IT all. And the thing from a finance perspective that I think is just so unfair is something that you're very passionate about. The fact that there are still taxes on necessary products. You mentioned earlier, I believe that this was a class two or F, D A product, a class two fda product. If this is monitored by the fda, why are we still paying taxes on these menstrual products?

Because it's that we live in a patriarch you know like, yeah. So in twenty fourteen, the tamp on tax, as its nicknamed, existed in forty states. Now it's in twenty states ten years later.

So we've made process. It's something that I it's been a three line of my work through the last ten years. I'm very passionate about IT because the temple protect is not going to solve period poverty because it's affecting people who already buy period products.

But IT does make a difference, right? If it's in some places up to like ten percent is an added dollar, two dollars that you're paying in every single every single time, right? To me like it's the issue is that not with having a sales tax on things in general, it's that there are many products that are exempt because there are medical necessities or because we've been deemed necessary way. So o game.

vio game is mad. Necessary ale hair .

growth interactions products do not have attacks a in some seats, vending machine sales, cowboy boots, chapstick cereal like that's that's where I get struck up, right? My issue is not with the sales tax in an existence is like the fact that other things are exempt that make IT, that IT makes no sense why temps, ons and pads are not exempt, right? Like I think these products are medical necessities and should have this exemption.

Um and when you look at like the list of things that are examined, it's ridiculous, right? And so but um so today there are twenty states that have of the team plan tax IT literally costs these states nothing to take IT down. It's like less than half a percent of the overall state budget.

And you know I have seen that the backlash that we get to taking on the camp on tax is stupid. It's like we need to make up the revenue. Um we'd have to increase taxes on tobacco and alcohol and I so do IT but the lobby's for that those industries are so much stronger than us, right, of course.

And it's such an archaic c law that not a lot of people know about. And that's why I care so much about social media. Because i've seen in these states, when we make a lot of noise on social media and we change public opinion and the governor starts getting heat for the tempo tax, that governor, with a sign of a document, can take IT down.

Governor knew some to get down governor of ohio. And it's a bi partisan issue, right? But to me, the temp on tax is a big deal because is very symbolic of we do not have period products nationally in school shelters and prisons, food thems, so didn't cover period products.

F S A H C just started covering them like two years ago. And um like the temp on tax is literally the legal precedent that period products are a luxury nonessential item and our governmental system works off of legal precedence. And so we need to take on the tampon tax so that we can make the argument in other places for period products to be free in schools, in shelters, in prisons.

And we still don't have that accessibility. And like my thinking is that period products should be just as accessible as toilet peer. Ah you still buy a toilet paper when you go to the store, but you also expected to every public restroom that yeah go to.

And for schools, there's funding for IT. For prisons, there's access to toilet paper. It's not this commodity that prisoners have to or inmates have to buy from the commercial. Like I feel very strongly that the accessibility should be just like toilet paper yeah, human right. It's a human right.

And so with August, like you got like I found for the team, bon tax on the nonprofit space raised a lot of money to like run these campaigns for. And something I was excited about when we started August was like, let's just be a temp on tax free brand. So wherever legally possible, if you bought products for us at the beginning on fine, we just didn't charge the team pox. We absorbed .

IT and and then you teamed up with a bunch of really cool bra, actually create a coalition, call the tamp on tax back coalition. Yeah, tell me all about that.

So we started originally doing IT as soon as we launched in target of like, well, we don't control that transaction, but we still don't. We wanted take a thing against attempt on tax. So we created this way where if you see a tax being charged to you on your receipt, you can text us a picture of your seat and will have then show you back for that tax.

And so it's us completely eating into our revenue. It's not even something that we're getting that tax or revenue in the first place. But IT was just kind of a symbol like like this temp on taxes, unfair and consumers shouldn't have to pay for this and then after a few months, we were like, wait, let's just get all the other brands as much as we can to do this so we recruit about eight other brands.

Created the coalition. So um you know the team tax back. Tok calm, if you go to the website, there's one phone number. You text the receipt for any of these brands and will then move you back for whatever taxi is. And to me was kind of like coalitions are not new in the nonprofit space, right? But he was exciting to bring you into the new company's ACE, where usually repeated against each other as, like, storm competitors.

But the thing is, like a lot of these founders i've known since I was a teenager, like i've known the founders of diva cup and salt and honey's literally sense I was a teenager because they were donating products to the non profit. They're still donating products to period, right? And so for me, like I felt like a big full circle moment to be able to kind of hold hands with these other founders and be like, look, I know on paper and a competitor, but like we all believe, and I think this is like the magic of fema founder. And when we talk about like reimagining capitalism, like there is a world of collaboration, to say we can put purpose over profit, or like even purpose, and understand that I can. Be in line with profit and like come together around an issue that .

we really care about. I love that so much. And you talk about the capitalism piece of IT. How are you able to baLance you like having a four profit company where you have investors whose expectation is for you to make money and then saying we will eat into our own revenue because we believe that IT is not right for people to be charged this tax. Like how do you juggle ethics but also the need to make money?

I think that it's not even like a consideration like we if if an investor thinks that stupid, you know impact is not the goal or impacted to be part of the goal, they just aren't the right investors for us, right? We did turn down a lot of money know when we were starting like I remember I was really hard because about that's a luxury yeah and it's a total luxury. But IT was in a risk like I remember my co found I being like so exhausted from getting rejected every day and then having an investor say we'll invest money if you aren't trains inclusive, if you don't post period blood and we got that a lot, wait.

people actually set out less they didn't want.

If you are trains inclusive and you say people get periods, you will not reach women. If you show period, but people will think your growth like. And there are still vessels who, like I know, should talk me behind the scenes because we turned on their money into them.

It's like why would you ever turn turn out? But we turned to down. And so I think we learned the thing i'm proud of as we have a capable investors who are very values alarmed, right? Those investors exist out there. A lot of them are women.

A lot of them are women of color who are like, yes, you know, this is something that we need, but I think it's also taking a bet on a lot like this conscious consumer, this consumer who doesn't want to be, who wants to invest their capital, like we live in a consumers culture, but IT feels good to buy from companies that you think are doing good, right? Like that feels exciting and we aren't the first print at all to do this whole. You buy tam pounds, we donate tam pounds like we .

donate products for every time. One example that I always think of .

like that isn't new yeah which is exciting. It's become more of the norm. Um and so I think part of IT, the case that we can make is like people buy from August, partially because of the impact commitments that we have.

And so you don't have to think about IT as mutual exclusive of impact versus profit like they can work and co existence and support each other. The more money we make, the more impact we can make. The more impact we make, the more excited people are are to support the company. Yeah.

and you come from this jensie marketing backgrounds. So I know these are all thoughts are like souring in your head. What do you think is like kind of like the next tear, the next asia on of genie consumption? Like is every brand out there going to have to start having some sort of, I don't want to say, like a nonprofit spin or a nonprofit bend to them? How do you think brands actually get jensie consumers to care?

I honestly think that is already happened. Like I think that we've seen like with a lot of I mean cancer culture on brands. Yeah has been because I think maybe five, ten years ago, burns were like, oh, shit.

The commissioned I was behind some of these studies. Jensie cares about impact. They wanted buy if the company says something about sustainability.

So then you see all these companies throwing on a leaf und to their packaging, you know, having some earth commitment, planting trees, but then you see Green washing, milk washing companies being getting backlash for consumers realizing like weight. They're just saying that right? The world washing is very real. Like commodity activism is like the academic term for IT. Really companies realizing that if they say they're doing good, they can some more product and not have to back up those claims.

But I actually think that there's this wave of being like of consumers being very skeptical, right? Do they just say that do they believe in IT? Do they care about dei? Or do they just make that higher because they were getting backlash now they don't have that higher, right?

I think that were actually past the you like for real August's climate neutral. We don't even talk about that because it's not a differentiate anymore. Yeah IT used to be right.

Ah sustainable packaging I don't think is a different cheaters. It's an expectation. And so I actually think that we've already seen this wave of companies really like realizing social responsibility.

Esg is like all yeah but it's already a norm, like it's already an and so I actually think what is exciting is that I think we've already seen that expectation, but now it's about like how do you it's a fine line of like not toko ized IT and making IT a DNA part of the brain rather than like something you do for cloud, right? But I think that jensie je alph c consumers are very skettles al about IT. It's like this expected. But if you do IT wrong, fuck you. You know, it's like a very it's a baLance.

Yeah yeah. And you've been so so open and I think transparent about your experiences of going to rehab for mental health, like even like feeling you know some of the negative side effects of like cancel culture. What would you say the biggest mistake you've made building August? And if you could go back in time.

would you try to array that? Um I think that like with August and I think because August started like after we have, I actually i'm very proud of where ah we've netted out with August. Of course they are like decisions.

I mean, honestly, like there are small mistakes, right? Like I really don't like this packaging. Wait, why so like people lover packaging, but you cannot read.

You can read some of the taxes so small, right? There are small things like that, right? Like their mistakes where we move too quickly. And I think that there are I think that that's something that I think about a lot of, like so much of my mentalities go, go, go, go, go, go that like I do make a lot of mistakes. I am not a perfect is at all.

And I think part of IT is because I have this like insecurity of, like if I think too much about a decision, want to get done. So I move very quickly. And I think that's where my cofounder is actually like we about each other out because he's very thoughtful, very methodical. And so we will I will push things and hold they slow down. So like we need that baLance and harmony in our company.

But like there's that where i'm constantly trying to work on of like you know what is the baLance? How quickly do we move? How do we avoid mistakes like that? But I think you know when in my earlier parts of my career, I think like the biggest mistake was I was just not thinking clearly, like I when you sleep one two hours at night and you're working three jobs at any point in time and you have no friends and you like are associated and blocked out from reality, like you make mistakes and and you forget the conversations you had and like and I think that's why I care a lot about like paper trails and I care I one of the reasons I love content creation is like I have part of my cp.

Like I got I have like complex p tsc. And one of like know the sometimes is like you have that rotor memory. And so like I will watch videos s and blogs that I made a month ago and be like I have like literally no election of this happening.

And so like I love concentration because for me, like it's it's literally visual diary and I think it's been really good for like my memory and things like that. But I think that for me, like there's a lot of things that I think that I wish I did differently, that honestly are big motivators for me to continue. Like I sleep ten hours a night right now. Yeah, I sleep ten a night, but I have a dog and like I have this boyfriend i've been with for five years like I very much like think of my life is like pre rehab post. We have been like just that being such a big inflection point for me.

Well, one, thank you for being so honest because i'm sure there are people listening who still feel the stigma around going to. We have it's clearly really worked. You are so successful and you give me up perfectly. I want to switch gears. Now that you are a point where August is a standalone company, how do you differentiate between August nadia online and who you are as a person?

Oh, i'm such a hard question. I'm sure you have this too. Yeah yeah, being like wall street girly yeah and then in the real life, who is yeah exactly I think I I don't think I actually distinguished between who I am online and I am in person like and I think people who meet me there like, wow, you're like really see you are mine like I had actually funning because they're like redit threads with screen shots of .

you should not be really .

no I but like there are there are funny ones in the funny ones who are like of another nip slip or like of another where he looks like shit because it's like I do not at IT my content.

I like press like it's not polish, like i'm so unfiltered and i'm like literally like I think that for me like I just make content about whatever I am thinking about, know whatever I I am doing but I would say that for me, like I think of August as literally the manifestation, like everything I care about and like what I want to see in the world. But I do not think of myself as August. And I actually think about this a lot in our marketing strategy where I am not the main poster on the August counter for the most part, like my face is not really on that right. I might show up once a month, but like i'm not logged into the account.

like we are not to logged in, I can be logged in.

but I like on my first out on my phone. No, like I think of myself as like a top of fund for August. But I do not think of like me ego August.

I think me being like the biggest cheerleader for August. But I I love when people are like, oh, I didn't realize that you were the girl behind August. Like, I love that and I love that so many customers have never heard of me, right? yeah. And I think that.

For me, but I wanted to be that if people know about me, they know about August, but not the other way around, right? And so I think about vata lot and most of my job data days like zoom calls and it's not sexy thing is not sexy. 对。 Like there's content creation, which is like me being in videos and then there's like being an Operating founder, which is like mostly emails and zoom calls, like it's literally, you know, I tried to make these day in my life flogs and they never perform well because most of my day is just sitting in front of a computer.

Like on zoo m, we have had this conversation so many times. You can like, uh, I wake up immediately, check my email yeah and then I take a meeting, then I eat a sad little lunch in front of like the kitchen singing exactly like leftover vers and then I go back to my meetings and it's like that was my day.

There's no like it's not like a cool, you know but and so for IT and then for me, like especially when we started, I was making like a hundred tiktok a day. Yeah now we've tried to make like five a day, but so i'm making content like in the evenings know. And like I think you .

doing five a day, by the way.

that's crazy. But I think of aug, like I like I work nine to six and then from six to midnight, i'm like con ting working, you know. And what's exciting now is like that's a whole of their business.

Like it's it's ila aly. I have my own assistant. I have my own so much, there's a whole business of content creation as you know yeah have your agents you know the publicis like that is its own business that I work from sixty minute, you know.

And so I think of IT is like my second job and then who I am as a person, I probably like I can do a Better job of distinguishing that. But I very much, I don't think that there is a line between being a creator and myself. And I think that i've ve come to terms with that, and i've actually really embrace that.

Just being your true natural self online is just easier because conception .

doesn't feel like a job to me. It's like I love doing IT.

That's amazing. Yeah, I will say there are some content that I make that i'm like, I am so proud of this. I'm so happy I can't wait to release. And then there's some .

content that I make a like I .

to make not my best work. I should say that.

But you're wedding content. Oh, my g wedding. okay. So I am like working on getting engaged. I say that it's like I I can got a brand deal for this ring every day, my boyfriend and like where the focus my ring you like I am working on get engaged and i'm so excited to make the content like outside like yeah love my boyfriend, excited for that. But like I think probably top reason I want to get engaged is the content OK.

But here's the thing that nobody tells you on your wedding day and on during your events, it's actually quite overwhelming and you will not have your phones. So you are the mercy of whoever making that content. you.

And in some cases, they do a great job. And in other cases, you're like, where is all of this? Like five of three videos from this entire event? I lost my phone and I put IT in my purse and I forgot about IT. And then.

you know, like, I have nothing. No, no, no. And I mean that we have this industry of conception for weddings like but yeah I mean, I very much like i'm very excited for the wedding content and it's like problem .

I sending my wedding video and you'll see that and you'll be like.

oh my god, oh my god and you have like the dream mood board wedding like my god, this bitch when I tell you I was like refreshing oh my god oh my gosh your wedding was so funny .

that thank you so much. But I have one final question to wrap up our interview. How has your work in the metro space affected your own relationship with your period?

I mean, I think that has made me so apologetic. I mean, literally my whole wardrobe is like period deemed fucking shirt t like my shirt says, gets period from a collapse we did like and I think most of my, what I wear is like period related but also like IT means that when I bleed through my clothes, my first thought is not, oh shit, I embarras onder if someone sees me, it's, oh my god, this is such good content like, that's what I think I D I be .

like in tears running home no.

I like immediately like, oh my god content and like, yesterday I got my period. I was like, on the phone, on my phone, on my toilet. I think I was trying to poop or something and I was like, wife and then I was like, oh, I got my period and my first thought was, okay, god, to make my phone and so literally I posted this video and i'm like naked on the toilet, like being like, I got my period, like with a bloody toilet paper.

Like, to me that means that I think of this conception as people think I love my period. I hate getting my peer a stomach. Everything works. That's why I care about period products because I like we might as well a coffee period.

This, that sucks yeah and so for me, but that means that when I got my period, even though, hey, getting my period, I am excited because i'm like, wow, so much content is coming and this is going to be so fun and like i'm training for the marathon right now. Oh my god, this is my first because I just sorted, like in training my first period, training for the marathon. I like content.

This is great, and I have this like a joy. I like love making content on my period is just so fun. And I love being able to connect with other people online who are like, i'm also on my period we're thinking up like I love you. I love IT .

that's amazing. Thank you so much for making all of our periods feel so much more community base. I absolutely hate my period.

IT sucks, but you are certainly making IT easier. And thank you for being so mindful and thinking about those who don't necessarily access to period products. I am so grateful that you've been here and chanted with us today.

Thank you for having me.

I'd like to thank my partners at Marshals for sponsoring this episode of network and chill. Being responsible with your finances means taking care of future you. And thankfully, while you're looking out for the you of tomorrow, Marshals is looking out for the you of today.

They've got the latest on trend and high quality fashion, beauty and home decor at a fraction of retail Prices. So whether you're starting a new job, taking some overdue P T, O, or just sitting at home planning your next move, Marshals will make sure you look good doing IT shop in store or online to get the good stuff today. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of networking chill, part of the vox media podcast network.

If you like the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe, so you never miss an episode. Got a burning financial question that you won't covered in a future episode right to us via podcast at your rich bf f duck com follow network and chill pod on instagram pa. State up today on all podcast related news, and you can follow me at your rich B, F, F for even more financial. Know how, see next week, bye.