She Fixed Her Back Pain Through Her Feet and Made Insoles Cool | Libie Motchan, Co-Founder of Fulton

She Fixed Her Back Pain Through Her Feet and Made Insoles Cool | Libie Motchan, Co-Founder of Fulton

Libie Motchan grew up in New York City, studied math and psychology at a tiny Minnesota liberal arts college with no business major, and spent her early career in consumer marketing, first at an agency, then at IBM running digital media and brand health. What she learned there was that she could not survive bureaucracy and red tape. What she also developed, hunched at a desk in unsupportive shoes, was back pain. She treated it the way most people in their 20s do: painkillers, massages, foam rolling, all symptom and no cause. Then a chiropractor rearranged how she saw her own body. Your shoes have no arch support, he told her, and that misalignment travels up from your feet to your knees, hips, and back. The fix he offered was a $500 pair of custom orthotics. At 26, she walked out. The drugstore alternative was squishy gels and foams built for a much older customer, nothing made for her. She took that gap to Wharton. At Welcome Weekend, before she had even committed to the program, she met Daniel Nelson over a shared complaint about achy backs and feet, and "Millennial Insoles," an idea she had written in her notebook three separate times, finally had a co-founder. They are now the co-founders of Fulton, the modern arch support brand making the world's most comfortable, supportive, and sustainable insoles out of cork (yes, the Birkenstock material). Cork molds to your foot as you walk, absorbs shock, is naturally antimicrobial, and is carbon-negative, because harvesting the bark keeps the tree alive. They found their supplier by Googling "cork footbed supplier Portugal," flew to Porto during first-year finals to meet him, tested early pairs on roughly 1,000 Wharton classmates, and were headed to launch at South by Southwest when SXSW became one of the first events canceled by COVID. They launched anyway on March 23, 2021, out of Daniel's studio apartment, and named the company after a street in Manhattan. In this episode, Libie breaks down why your back pain might actually start in your feet (no arch support means unstable ankles, which means overpronation, which means misalignment all the way up the chain). She explains how she and Daniel modernized a category she lovingly calls geriatric, medical, and uncool, landing on a mid-price point between $500 orthotics and squishy drugstore gels, and why they bet everything on direct-to-consumer education instead of retail. She walks through how to actually use the insoles (one pair per shoe, then leave them in, because the cork custom-molds to how you walk in that shoe), and the House Shoe born because customers kept taping insoles into their slippers. She gets honest about staying ferociously lean (five years in, still just her and Daniel full-time), and whether she would have started Fulton without a co-founder telling her she wasn't crazy. Plus her advice for young founders: there is no one right way, so build it the way that feels right to you. Whether you're someone running around the city in beautiful shoes that are quietly wrecking your back, a founder trying to make a "boring" category cool without losing the credibility that makes people trust it, or anyone who has ever stood at the drugstore foot-care wall feeling like none of it was made for you, this one's for you. 🎁 A gift from us + Fulton: Use code WOMANSPLAIN15 for 15% off site wide at walkfulton.com [http://walkfulton.com]. Find Fulton: 🔗 walkfulton.com [http://walkfulton.com] 📲 @walkfulton (Instagram and TikTok) Find Womansplain: 📲 @womansplainpod ✉️ hello@womansplainpod.com [hello@womansplainpod.com]

Floss Like You Mean It: Two Sisters Made Oral Care Obsessable | Dr. Chrystle Cu & Cat Cu, COCOLAB

Dr. Chrystle Cu went from running a fully booked Bay Area dental practice (patients waiting four to six months for an appointment) to co-founding COCOLAB, the oral care brand that's making flossing something people actually want to do. Her co-founder and little sister Cat Cu pivoted from a failed San Francisco art marketplace (one painting sold, and her dad bought it) to becoming the creative force behind a brand that's turned floss, toothbrushes, and toothpaste into objects people genuinely want on their counters. A decade in, COCOLAB is in Target, CVS, Credo, Anthropologie, and Goop, with 177% growth over the past three years and a spot on the Fortune 500 fast growth list. In this episode, the sisters break down how they bootstrapped for nearly a decade before raising their Series A, why they started as Coco Box before narrowing to floss (the problem was just too big to share a wrapper), and how a cold email to Gwyneth Paltrow's assistant in 2016 became their first real inflection point. Chrystle gets into the science of why most people are brushing wrong (you're skipping your gum line, which is where all the plaque actually lives), why coconut oil ended up in the floss (lauric acid, Ayurvedic tradition, and yes, a little bit of Goop strategy), and how her dream toothbrush became one that a dental hygienist liked enough to tattoo on herself. Cat talks about the unlikely mashup of finance brain and art brain, the brute force of bootstrapped fulfillment (she spent five years personally wrapping packages), and why she still loses sleep every time they launch a new SKU. Whether you're building in a category nobody thinks is sexy, bootstrapping through the height of the VC era and wondering if you made the right call, or just looking for the reason your gums bleed at the dentist, this one's for you. 🎁 A Gift for the Womansplain Community Use code WOMANSPLAIN15 at checkout on cocolab.com [http://cocolab.com] for 15% off your entire order. Start with the original CocoFloss (the textured, coconut-oil-infused one that lab-tested four times more effective at plaque removal than the leading brand) or the CocoBrush designed to actually clean your gum line. If you have not flossed since your last dental appointment, this is your sign. Find COCOLAB: 🔗 cocolab.com [http://cocolab.com] 📲 @cocolab Find Womansplain: 📲 @womansplainpod ✉️ hello@womansplainpod.com [hello@womansplainpod.com]

She Healed Her Own Acne with Acupuncture and Built a TCM Sanctuary | Saher Hussaini, Founder of SYI Acupuncture

Saher Hussaini is the founder and acupuncturist of Set Your Intention Acupuncture (SYI Acupuncture), a New York-based wellness studio reshaping the modern acupuncture experience through intentional healing, considered design, and personalized care. A licensed acupuncturist and herbalist, Saher blends the ancient wisdoms of Traditional Chinese Medicine with an integrative approach to treatment, supporting patients through hormonal imbalances, emotional wellness, skin health, stress, and digestive support. SYI is designed as an extension of her healing philosophy. Every detail of the space was created to evoke calm and restoration, with chic interior design and sensory experience that play an integral role in the healing process. As acupuncture and Chinese medicine continue to gain recognition in publications like Vogue and ELLE, Saher has become a trusted provider for those seeking a more refined approach to wellness. Saher came to Chinese medicine the way many of her patients do: out of desperation. At 23, working as an EMT in DC, she developed adult-onset cystic acne so severe it covered her face and chest, then spiraled into a stomach ulcer after six months of escalating antibiotics. A friend referred her to a TCM doctor who cleared the ulcer and healed her skin, and pivoted her entire career. Born to a family of internal medicine and psychiatry physicians, Saher traded her Western medical path for a four-to-five-year masters and doctorate in TCM, eventually opening SYI in Nomad as a solo practice. In this episode, Saher breaks down the five pillars of TCM (acupuncture, herbal therapy, dietary guidance, moxibustion, and movement practices like qigong and tai chi), and why TCM treats the whole body interconnectedly rather than isolating symptoms. She explains the Qi clock, the 24-hour cycle where each organ system functions optimally in three-hour increments, and why being asleep between 11 PM and 3 AM is non-negotiable for liver and gallbladder restoration. She walks through the biomedical theories behind acupuncture (opioid receptor mimicry, central nervous system signaling, fascial networks) and why a needle in your head can resolve tendinitis in your foot. She gets honest about building SYI: the sign-from-the-universe morning a Hulu executive emailed asking her to provide ear seeds for 200 tastemakers at the Reasonable Doubt premiere ("I literally thought it was Nigerian prince spam"), and why she chose "Set Your Intention" rather than her initials, to make the space about the patient, not the practitioner. Plus: the TCM dermatology fellowship she's pursuing in London under Dr. Mazin Al-Hafaji, and the beauty soup (Jujube, Tremella mushroom, Goji berry, pear, with Indian spices) she's developing into her inaugural product. Whether you're a founder building a solo practice without a playbook, a woman who's exhausted every Western option, a wellness operator studying how design transforms a clinical space, or someone who wants to understand why you're waking up groggy and reaching for coffee, this one's for you. 🎁 A gift from us + SYI Acupuncture: Because acupuncture is a medical service, SYI is unable to offer broadly available discounts. The first ten Womansplain listeners to email hello@syiacupuncture.com [hello@syiacupuncture.com] with the Womansplain newsletter forwarded along and a request for an herb consultation will receive a complimentary herbal consultation ($150 value). Find SYI Acupuncture: 🔗 syiacupuncture.com [http://syiacupuncture.com] 📲 @syi.acu 📍 27th & Broadway, Nomad, NYC Find Womansplain: 📲 @womansplainpod ✉️ hello@womansplainpod.com [hello@womansplainpod.com]

She Bled Through Her Wedding Dress and Built a Chinese Medicine Empire | Lulu Ge, Founder & CEO of Elix

Lulu Ge came to this country at four and a half not speaking a word of English, internalized the immigrant instinct to shed everything different about her, and spent her 20s in fashion corporate strategy running a $300M budget at Saks. Hormonal acne, hair falling out, periods so unpredictable she bled through her white French lace wedding dress during cocktail hour at her Tuscan wedding. Park Avenue gynecologists offered the same three things on rotation: pill, patch, ring; antidepressants for the mood swings; opioids for the pain. It was her mom who finally said: you need to give Chinese medicine a try. One blend of herbs from a doctor who read her tongue, three months of boiling them down at home, and her next period arrived without warning. No cramps, no signal, just a body that finally felt like her own. She is now the founder and CEO of Elix, the first modern east-meets-west wellness platform integrating 5,000 years of Traditional Chinese Medicine with clinical research. She launched March 8, 2020, the same weekend Cuomo declared a state of emergency, and grew 2,000% in the first 18 months running the company from her childhood bedroom. In this episode, Lulu breaks down why 60% of birth control is prescribed off-label as a band-aid for symptoms it was never invented to treat, and the East/West split she's spent six years bridging. She teaches a real-time tongue read you can do right now: red tip means heart-organ stress and overthinking (most high-powered women have it), scalloped edges mean dampness and bloating, red dots mean blood stagnation and likely period cramps or headaches. Plus the warming-vs-cooling food framework (red inflamed acne = internal heat, eat cucumber and watermelon; whitehead acne with fatigue = internal cold, skip the salads and ice drinks). She walks through the science behind the formulas: Daily Harmony, based on a 1,000-year-old cortisol-regulating formula that's the #1 selling formula in Asia; and the new mental clarity formula featuring reishi, lion's mane, and cordyceps. She also gets honest about telling her immigrant parents she was quitting her dream Saks job ("my mom looked me in the eye and burst into tears"), and the Wharton EMBA professor Ethan Mollick who pulled her aside after Entrepreneurship 101 and said "if you decide to do this full time, I'll fund you" (six months later he followed through). Plus her advice for young founders: know your why before you raise a dollar. Whether you're a woman who came off birth control and watched everything go haywire, a founder weighing whether to leave a corporate job for an idea your parents are scared of, or someone who has never once thought to look at her own tongue in the mirror on a Friday night, this one's for you. 🎁 A gift from us + Elix: Use code WOMANSPLAIN15 at checkout on elixhealing.com [http://elixhealing.com] for 15% off your first purchase. Find Elix:🔗 elixhealing.com [http://elixhealing.com]📲 @elixhealing📲 Lulu: @lulug and @luluth eherbalist on TikTok Find Womansplain:📲 @womansplainpod✉️ ⁠ [hello@womansplainpod.com]hello@womansplainpod.com [hello@womansplainpod.com]⁠ [hello@womansplainpod.com]

She Diagnosed Her Own PCOS and Built an Empire | Samantha Diamond, Founder & CEO of Bird&Be

Samantha Diamond was diagnosed with PCOS in her mid-20s by her then-boyfriend, a Toronto OBGYN resident who happened to be living with her. Most women wait years for that diagnosis. 70% never get it at all. That asymmetry, the unfair advantage of having a doctor at home, became the founding insight for Bird&Be: what if everyone could walk into a fertility appointment already armed with the information, the testing, and the lifestyle prep? Now she's the founder and CEO of Bird&Be, a modern fertility brand selling supplements, at-home tests, and male fertility kits to a 1,000-store Ulta Beauty footprint, an eight-figure subscription business growing 100% YoY, and a clinical network of fertility doctors actively prescribing the products to their patients. She built it after a decade running her own beauty PR agency in Canada, a miscarriage between her second and third child, and a long fertility journey of her own. In this episode, Samantha breaks down why birth control masks PCOS for years (and the exact symptoms to watch for when you come off it), the difference between cycle-tracking apps and ovulation strips ("apps are amazing for remembering things, but you need to add the biometrics"), and why she insists women ask their doctors for blood work and an ultrasound, and find a new doctor if they're refused. She walks through the science behind every product: the FSH ovarian reserve test that nearly annihilated her to manufacture (started in COVID, when no lab in the world wanted to make non-COVID rapid tests), the at-home sperm test that sends you a video of your moving sperm in 15 minutes, and the CoQ10 dose in their preconception supplement, the highest on the prenatal market. She also gets honest about the resounding nos in her first fundraise ("I left every meeting wondering, am I a fool?"), the COVID pivot when her original team walked, and the early investor who called her months later and said "I can't stop thinking about you and this idea." Plus: meeting her co-founder through her own husband, why she pays for a communication coach for the founding team ("a co-founder relationship is like a marriage"), and her two-part advice for young founders that has nothing to do with business and everything to do with sleep, heavy weights, and being "dressed to be ready." Whether you're a founder navigating your first round of investor nos, a woman who came off birth control and noticed something is off, a CPG operator studying how to win clinical credibility and beauty-aisle distribution at the same time, or someone who just wants to understand her own cycle for the first time, this one's for you. 🎁 A gift from us + Bird&Be: Use code WOMANSPLAIN15 at checkout on birdandbe.com [http://birdandbe.com] for 15% off sitewide (one-time orders or your first subscription order). Valid through end of September. Find Bird&Be:🔗 birdandbe.com [http://birdandbe.com]📲 @birdandbe Find Womansplain:📲 @womansplainpod✉️ hello@womansplainpod.com [hello@womansplainpod.com]