319. Focusing On What Matters: Sequel Founder Amanda Calabrese On Reinventing Period Products & How To Get Back Up When You're Down
Hurdle with Emily Abbate
iHeartPodcasts
4.9 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2024
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Let’s just get this out of the way from the start: We are talking about the menstrual cycle this week, but this conversation goes so much deeper than the monthly cycle. I had the opportunity to sit down with Amanda Calabrese in Paris, founder of Sequel — a spiral tampon that creates a longer flow path for better absorption and no leak protection. We talk about her journey in developing Sequel, which started as a class project at Stanford and the hurdles involved with creating a D2C product. Amanda opens up about her experience with burnout and how she leans on her years as an athlete to inform her daily decisions as an entrepreneur.
IN THIS EPISODE
Amanda’s background and how Sequel came to be (3:28)
A lesson on the sport of life saving and how her athletic career introduced her to the first Sequel investor (7:20)
The first steps to put Sequel in motion and how Amanda used her skills as an athlete to develop a company (16:15)
Amanda’s go-to when overcoming burnout (24:45)
Biggest hurdles in early stages of product development (27:42)
A crash course on raising money and angel investors (31:15)
The defining moment of the first Sequel tampon and where you can purchase Sequel (38:24)
The branding behind Sequel and Amanda’s biggest lessons in creating a brand (41:15)
A piece of advice for every female founder (45:12)
Sequel’s partnership with Athleta and what it’s looked like in Paris and beyond (46:50)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What are you going to do when you hit a hurdle? If you fall, you get back up, if you clip the hurdle, you keep running. |
| 0:05.3 | And so it's horrible when you're on the ground, but just get up and like there will be better things for you. What's going on everyone? Emily Abotti here. You are listening to |
| 0:29.7 | episode 319 of hurdle, a wellness focused podcast where I talked to |
| 0:35.4 | inspirational people about everything from their highest highs and |
| 0:38.7 | toughest moments to essential tips on how to live a healthier, happier, more motivated life. |
| 0:45.4 | We all go through our fair share of hurdles. |
| 0:48.6 | My goal through these discussions is to empower you to better navigate yours and move with intention so that you can stride |
| 0:55.1 | towards your own big potential and of course have some fun along the way. I hope |
| 1:02.0 | you're ready to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and |
| 1:04.8 | that today's guest is going to talk about the menstrual cycle and that's because |
| 1:09.8 | Amanda Calabrice is the co-founder of a brand called sequel. |
| 1:14.4 | Sequel has designed spiral tampons to create a longer flow path for more even |
| 1:20.8 | fluid absorption. aka this is a tampon that's not going to leak on you. |
| 1:27.0 | I know, I know we have to get comfortable with these words like tampons and cycle and period talk talk but it's something that all of us are dealing with going through |
| 1:38.0 | navigating and no one likes to leak and that was a problem that Amanda and her co-founder were trying to solve when they were both |
| 1:45.2 | super active back at Stamford. She talks to me about this journey today and the hurdles that were involved with bringing what was once a class |
| 1:55.4 | project into the world as a full on direct to consumer product. Amanda also |
| 2:02.3 | shares insights with me |
| 2:03.9 | from her time on the USA life saving team |
| 2:08.1 | and opens up about how her experience |
| 2:10.4 | as an |
| 2:15.0 | entrepreneur. |
... |
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